TheStory.txt

	
		
			
				The Story Continues . . . a serial enovel by Ferd Eggan
			
			1 Welcome to Hotel Real Desert 
			But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual
				development by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of
				mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable for
				the sojourn of a night in which there are no stars and the moon is in
				travail . . 1
			
			The Hotel
			Hotel is next door to a perfect metaphor for the mind, and thus for
				psychoanalysis. In my father's house are many mansions…To get there you
				have to leave somewhere else… 
			Outside of EuroDisney, on the road the farmers block to hold up the
				prices of Europroduce, is the Hotel Real Desert. Once a busy place
				recommended to savvy travelers ("I travel in women's undergarments, and
				I always feel I can let my hair down here--four stars" Michel Foucault.)
				offering ersatz Las Vegas vistas of
				bacteriostatic sand and palms over the casino, the Real Desert has in
				recent times had to take on the faded but patinated glamour of a
				residential hotel, on an inconvenient exit ramp on the freeway from
				Vienna to Paris.
			Signs read: Welcome to Hotel Real Desert! Free PsychoAnalytic
				Consultations! Pan-African Vegetarian Gourmandise! Last Resort Before
				Disney!
			The triumphant clucking of bouffanted small winners at the casino has
				all but silenced, or more accurately, is hushed by the uncomprehending
				sullen stares of adolescent louts sweating over video game joysticks,
				deafening themselves with third-rate rap in Marsailles French.
			2
			Le Casino Atroce
			Human adults learn to perceive this inherently fluid, relative domain
				in terms of fixed, solid objects existing within fixed structures of
				space and time. (a pretty Newtonian view, really) whereas the
				baby-child's rudimentary perceptual processes are more consistent with
				Einstein's relativistic discoveries.2
			
			
			You sat in the casino bar, The Snivilling Sibbling (sic), one Wednesday
				night cooling your heels in the turbid oasis waters flowing under the
				barstools, as the albino bartender washed glasses and practiced flipping
				vodka bottles. An evil young girl pacified a colicky toddler with wine
				spritzers in her baby bottle. Your revulsion at the girl's ministrations
				to the child, at her "I Love Satan" t-shirt, her ketchup-congealed pommes frites de Liberte--or perhaps it was
				abreaction to the bass tones of the hip hop muzak and the screams
				emanating from the serial-murderer video games--overwhelmed you. You
				pulled the girl into a stall in the powder room and urged her to hold
				back on the alcohol, trying to explain that she didn't have to revenge
				herself on the baby.
			"What is she but a vessel to be filled, a flesh bubble around Lack?"
				the vixen asked. "And who am I, her sister or mother?" She continued in
				that untuned a capella vibrato that teenagers take for soulful singing
				these days
			"Momma, I tried,
			Momma, I couldn't stop the tide of tears, just like you I cried,
			The world had lied, had took away our pride, the slow, sad slide
			Of men that offer light girls a ride, a hookup but never a bride, Momma
			I'd of died.
			But you cared for me, shared bare necessity with me, dissed Felicity
				with me, preyed God above for me, .."
			"Stop, stop," you sobbed. "How can you say that? You're white, for
				Christ's sake!"
			With a certainty that it's better never to have been born than to be as
				hapless as the girl, you tied her off and injected her with a killing
				dose of fentanyl. As you left the bar, the little toddler was wobbling
				around the coffee table, the nipple of her bottle clenched in her teeth;
				almost no one turned from the video screens to see you on the way out.
			The Baby Thinks
			"Where'd Ana K. go?"
			"Is this another one of the learning experiences I am expected to
				undergo--to suffer? I guess the reason babies my age have millions of
				extra neurons is so we can learn. I suppose that as a neonate I had
				little choice in what happened to me and must have felt breast, warmth,
				wetness, fullness without clear ideas of internal vs. external origins.
				Do I need to repeat Lacan here cf. the symbolic stage w/Piaget's
				sensorimotor stage of "functional recognition;" e.g., recognition that
				something is "for drinking or "for wetness.."
			[She waddles over to the table and pulls a disposable diaper out of a
				Minnie Mouse tote bag. Lying on her back on the floor, she pulls off her
				used Pamper and replaces it with the fresh one.]
			"Oh, the joy of zinc ozide,!" she burbles "Although I've never seen a
				penis, I expect it's like carrying around a faucet. I've having a time
				finding the muscles to pee as it is. I'm operating the circular reflex:
				an outgoing impulse (e.g., leading to the contraction of a muscle)
				followed not mainly by the satisfaction of
				need, but rather by some incoming sensory impulse (e.g., in the eye,
				urethra, etc.)" [Pressing down the self-adhesive flaps, she sits up,
				bottle still in her mouth, and muses.]
			"Now, however, my babyhood seems to require concentrated efforts to
				construct myself, learning to be me seeing, hearing, talking and
				walking. I begin to take pleasure in operating the circular reflex 'to
				produce interesting spectacles.3'
			"Baby-sized mentations of accomplishment, frustration, satisfaction,
				deprivation attach themselves to the sensations and form the bases of my
				love, anger, etc. But the way they grow has to mean that what I will
				learn to call emotions are very dense mixtures of sensation and
				interpretation in narrative form: I feel sad because X happened. X
				happened because Y did Z to me or I did Z (to Y.) Someday I will know
				that Noam Chomsky says innate human grammar requires subject, verb, and
				usually object--that our human brains are wired to view and thus to talk
				about the world in this way--although not necessarily in this order.
				Here adult Freudians will be bound to object: 'Baby, you are conflating
				organic brain with functional mind.' I dismiss this as reifying a purely
				mental phenomenon; plus it's too confounding for my developmental stage.
			"Instead I will consider a feeling I have begun to feel now: I am sad.
				An explanation will arise very quickly. I feel sad because (I am sure by
				then I will be able to imagine some causal relationship between my body,
				my bottle, and the disappearance of Ana K). I'm reminded of previous
				times I have felt sad and I will connect them into a series by way of
				the synaptic corridors they pass through. The sad-ness itself will
				already be an explanation of a somatic sensation or mental phenomenon.
				Sensations are on my skin or the virtual skin, emotions are
				already-processed sensations or mental phenomena S/MP + (pleasure,
				satisfaction, warmth, i.e. security) = feeling OK. Wet diaper +
				disappeared person + insecurity = feeling bad
			[She stumbles, the bottle between her hands, held up to release the
				last drops.]
			"I have to say parenthetically that this new stuff in the bottle
				affects the feel of things in a big way.
			"Even now, my feeling OK is associated with events and people; gotta
				love them (or want them or hate or fear them). These associations will
				become progressively more elaborate as I accumulate more experience.
				Soon I can say 'I feel I am cold and contemptuous of others because I am
				afraid to experience their rejection of me,' or 'I love him because he
				makes me feel secure and confident and wanted.' The explanations will
				not particularly help in feeling better if one feels 'bad;' conversely,
				trying to feel 'good' will not seem to be enhanced by good explanations.
				I will live through years of therapists encouraging me to experience my
				psychic wounds, my feelings, with the idea that I can achieve a state of
				being in which pain can be experienced without debilitating
				consequences.
			"I will ask now, while I have extra synapses, isn't it the narrative
				itself that inscribes the scars on our minds, our hearts, my future
				razor-cut adolescent arms. I wonder if it just wouldn't be better to
				skip the pain altogether."
			[She slips, falls on her back, unconscious. Urine spreads in a pool
				toward the frayed electrical cord of a Mickey's Ghost Town slot
				machine.]
			3
			Rm. 1453 MonaLisa of the Desert.
			Gazing at the Monde de Disney parking lot, MonaLisa sits framed in her
				window, an ultralite cigarette in her hand, her arms supporting her
				gravity-afflicted breasts, once lunar melons, now barely able to plump
				up over the mass of her moist arms and the aluminum sill, cooling in the
				moonlight. Her face, the face on which the ends of the earth have come
				and gone, is not pensive, not secretly smiling, but cowed by the
				suffering she has felt and is all too sure to feel again. She has taken
				it on as weight; the excess of everything gradually pulled her pelvis
				out of tilt, her bowels out of line, her womb a little adrift. She has
				just returned, in fact, from the hospital where she lay under the knife
				for five hours while the doctors hewed away adhesions, occlusions and
				finally her ovaries and a pear-shaped mass of no longer definable
				fibrous tissue. Hers is the face of a patient, drugged out of pain and
				sorrow, drifting on Demerol. She felt something a few hours ago when she
				came to her full animal consciousness, her autonomic systems in full
				alarm at this latest outrage on her person. Mona believes she has nearly
				fulfilled her aspiration to drama-less calm. "I need to keep my head
				straight," Mona says to the moonlight, "no more nut-rolling on Novy or
				the kids."
			
			"I shall grow another breast
			in the middle of my chest
			what shall it be
			
			not like the other ones lying there
			those two fried eggs.
			
			in the center of my flesh
			I shall grow another breast
			rounder than a ready fist,
			slippery as a school of fish,
			sounder than stone. Call it
			She - Who - educates my chest.
			
			She Who.
			
			She is not my daughter, not my son
			I'm going to groom her with my tongue
			needle her senses with my pain
			feed her hunches with my brain,
			
			She Who defends me.4"
			
			"It's a good thing I already had my two girls," she reassures herself.
				The first glowed with the iridescent colors of a conch shell, of a
				pussy, opening all shiny pinks, golden hair and sunlit trust until Mona,
				sick with junkie pneumonia, had to give her up--a junkie ho would only
				victimize her child, they told her. Her baby's sun faded in the dark and
				clammy Pacific Northwest under Mona's sister's minging care. The second,
				now a toddler, had the better luck of being born in a prison hospital
				and fostered out to a former nun with money and horses and compassionate
				love. Mona is thrilled to have her here on a visit now, just three,
				unable to imagine inadequacies in parents, pleased with Mona, with
				herself and with the still-pink girl she has just learned is her older
				sister.
			This, then, is Mona, whose children come at great pain. Mona was driven
				to sobriety by the daughter once handed over to her half-sister, then
				taken back (at the teen daughter's insistence that Mona's sister was not
				a supportive--i.e. generous--parent). Poor Mona was then abandoned again
				when her daughter returned temporarily to her dank previous home where
				she became a gibbering speed freak, an auto thief, a fugitive, and
				generally white trash. She and her mother share one trait, an ability to
				recount the episodes when they were maimed and deprived of the halcyon
				life they believe is available to normal people. "While she's here, I
				have to get her head straight, too," thinks Mona, believing for a moment
				that she is in charge of a life, any life.
			
			4
			Rm. 1789 A Political Tract
			
			Lemmy Caution checks in. He immediately boots up his computer and hooks
				into the net. Routing through several nodes, he finds that a message is
				waiting, has been waiting for quite a while.
			One starless August night much like tonight, Lemmy stumbled out of the
				Burg Frieden in PrinzLauerBurg, then still E Berlin. Drunk, unable to
				move his tongue, desperately lonely, he fell into the rainy gutter. When
				he woke, a piece of paper was twisted in his mouth. Dried out, he read
			People ask, what is the nature of the revolution that we talk about.
				Who will it be made by, and for, and what are its goals and strategy?
			
			We are within the heartland of a world-wide monster, a country so rich
				from its world-wide plunder that even the crumbs doled out to the
				enslaved masses within its borders provide for material existence very
				much above the conditions of the masses of people of the world. . . All
				of the United Airlines Astrojets, all of the Holiday Inns, all of
				Hertz's automobiles, your television set, car and wardrobe already
				belong, to a large degree to the people of the rest of the world. 5
			
			
			He's been committed ever since, a clandestine freedom fighter,
				autonomous, placing his devices alone or with a few other cadres,
				exchanging plans and ideological instruction only through safe message
				drops. During Vietnam, it was easier, as the Vietnamese were very astute
				in their description of their People's War and the centrality of the
				anti-colonial struggle against US imperialism. At first he exchanged
				tangible letters, paper signs of struggle. These new electronic messages
				are harder to actualize in practice, and the post-socialist world of
				global empire far harder to conceptualize in terms of improvement and
				barbarism. A while ago, this:
			The deaths of three friends ended our military conception of what we
				are doing. It took us weeks of careful talking to rediscover our roots,
				to remember that we had been turned on to the possibilities of
				revolution by denying the schools, the jobs the death relationships we
				were "educated" for. We went back to how we had begun living with groups
				of friends and fount that this revolution could leave intact the
				enslavement of women if women did not fight to end and change it,
				together . . .And marijuana and LSD and little money and awakening to
				the black revolution, the people of the world. 6
			
			
			But tonight, for the first time in way too long, Lemmy is to meet his
				closest comrade. Oedipa Maas is the slinky trans revolutionary who first
				turned on Tania Hearst, later turning on to more productive
				anti-globalization struggles. Lemmy and Oedipa have not seen each other
				since Seattle. As he sets out the sling and the dildos, he sings, "the
				Prince of Stories would walk right by me.7"
				Perceiving the onset of hallucination from the soma, Lemmy voices an
				instant message into his netserver, hoping this will be sufficient
				political struggle for tonight, as unsure as he is about
				inter/intra-gender sexual relations.
			Laughing.
			Laughing.
			Laugh.
			Couldn't stop laughing. . .
			at my own everyday pomposity,
			the narrow arrogance of scholars,
			the impudence of the rational,
			the smug naiveté of words in contrast
			to the raw rich ever-changing panoramas that flooded my brain.8
			
			
			Lemmy shuts down the computer; the door chimes, Oedipa makes her
				appearance.
			5
			My Dreams
			"Sauvez ce qui pleure" Paul Eluard, La Capital de Douleur
			
			A long dream of torture…my father wanted to kill Eubie, our youngest
				brother. My middle brother Blake and I had to protect him. After many
				suspenseful but mystifying clashes, everything was over--dad was dead.
				Our mother came in and stabbed me repeatedly and then I was transferred
				to two torturers…blood, piercings, exhaustion. Terror before pain, then
				no strong pain…Masturbated last night--ucs. Guilt? I can't let the
				murder of the kid happen--too much guilt if it does. . . Ethics from
				guilt. Conscious memories of tender care for Eubie.
			For the last century, the west has twisted in the meshes of a
				pre-lapsarian dream: if only I hadn't been psychically wounded in
				childhood I'd be all right, I'd have a healthy self.
			My dad's house had many mansions. When he died we had to empty the
				house and divide up his accumulations and all I got was this lousy
				Schadenfreude.
			Seven lean cows, all bowing down to me . . .
			No really, I dream myself flustered by urgency and loss . . .need to
				prevent disasters. Eubie's son wanted to ride his bike. I needed Eubie
				to drive me to Noe School to find a teacher who knew what I needed to
				know. delay, excruciating wait while the bike is put on the rack . . . I
				searched the tall room under the eaves, strewn with papers and junk,
				searching, searching for the paper with the phone number . . . calling
				information, getting a number, not clear whether it's the number for an
				operator or a direct line. . . the phone is different. . . my mother
				said 'nothing's changed" . . . I get hysterically angry: 'look at the
				numbers on the phone. Are they different or not?' 'Yes, they are,' Aunt
				MabelRuth admits things have changed. . . jabbering in Spanish from the
				roofers across the street . . . a gas-sputtering lawnmower, clattering
				against the sidewalk . . . I'm in my house. . . I know it's not my real
				house but it's my house invaded by lying hoodlums . . . who will be hurt
				next? . . .
			I think our human brains are an evolutionary accident. The difference
				between chimp and human brains is very significant in terms of size
				and--over time--has led to marked differences in cognition if not
				perception. The difference does not look like the results of any
				evolutionary pressure. The random gene changes that led to a much larger
				brain do not seem to offer survival advantage commensurate with the
				energy expenditure required to supply it. I conclude that our brain
				began as a genetic mishap, for no more purpose than that apportioned to
				any other animal, mineral or vegetable.
			I am kissing my brother Blake. . . now I love him . . . he reluctantly
				surrenders to his love for me. . . his body is beautiful, athletic, warm
				and welcoming . . . his mouth softly moving, thrilling, familiar . . .
				his baseball hands, his football legs . . I realize now that I wasn't
				jealous of him because Dad liked him best, but of my dad because Blake
				liked him more than me . . . Dad sees us kissing and me lying on top,
				getting ready to fuck . . .maybe it's Blake on top . . . he tells Mom .
				. . she tells him it's ok. . .
			"We shall see people engaged in attractive occupations, giving no
				thoughts to material wants, free from all pecuniary cares and anxieties.
				As women and children all work, there will be no idlers, all will earn
				more than they consume. Universal happiness and gaiety will reign. A
				unity of interests and views will arise, crime and violence disappear.
				There will be no individual dependence---no private servants, only
				maids, cooks, and so forth all working for all (when they please).
				Elegance and luxury will be had by all.9".
			6
			The Clouds Above the Real Desert
			Joseph in contemplation: "The Cloud of Unknowing is the cloud of
				electrons around the nucleus--here/not here, energy/matter-- either,
				depending on what's happening, the universe's rules of operation. A
				Joshua Tree grows even in this unreal desert, cells grow,
				photosynthesis, the works. The tree, as the rule of the physical
				universe would have it, reflects light. In the universe humans inhabit,
				reflecting light is a necessary result of the assemblage of matter on
				earth--necessary also to the survival of the tree and to its presence
				among other trees, rocks, animals." Pumping his harmonium, he sings:
			Song of the Joshua Tree
			
			that Josh is about fifteen feet tall
			tree tissue organized to move water from root to crown
			osmotic pressure, umm ..hmm, and transpiration through the leaves
			
			we are to presume that the tree knows nothing
			--it has no brain--
			it's more primitive than "real" trees
			but it can repair itself, and it can react
			--slowly, I say, umm . hmm--
			to phenomena, emergent or adverse.
			
			its cells are sensitive to the pressures (pleasures):
			quickening sap and warm breezes
			reflecting light greenly
			the Joshua Tree fallaciously, pathetically,
			likes afternoon light,
			likes being seen
			just so, just so . .umm..hmm
			by discriminating coyotes and quails.
			
			"I wish I knew enough to assert clearly that this Spinozan10, rather than Kantian, idea of human perception as a
				necessary and proportionate interaction of human body with tree,
				obviates any quibbling about whether or not matter is just our idea of
				things."
			[The] discernment of relatively invariant entities and processes and
				the creation of mental maps where the key coordinates map relatively
				stable things, . . may be the most practical way to be an animal on this
				planet--else why would we make the mistake of believing in solidity and
					fixity?11
			
			
			"Else why do we? I want to assert that molecules, atoms, photons,
				electrical and chemical energy, make us see
				the Joshua Tree. The tree gives: it 'trees' to us. We see it: we can't
				help it, the rods and cones react to light, the reactions excite a few
				cells, then more and more. Brain studies seem to indicate that the
				excitations are not on/off--not digital, but analog--the
				neurotransmitters and electrical flow are emergent properties of the
				eye-brain-mind process that are modulable over an infinite range, not
				merely by quantifiable increments of cell firings and cell non-firings.
				And they are not yet coded, nor are they in language. Afterwards,
				apparently 500 milliseconds after, we are looking at the tree and
				utilizing previous neural pathways in relation to the tree.
			"Only then are we 'affected' by the tree, and only then do we cogitate
				an idea, which is coded, is in symbols, of 'tree.' No part of this is
				any more or less 'real' or objective. It must take active work to look
				at the tree: the reception of minimal sensory input is necessary not
				sufficient by itself to arouse attention, our eye-brain-minds select
				which datum is to be enriched through concentration. From there the
				processing must actively combine memories, previous categorizations and
				new data through neural connections. A particular tree becomes a tree in
				many contexts, as if the brain makes as many as possible available from
				which to draw.
			"And if this is true of a mere tree, a fortiori
				it is even more true of human interaction."
			…'Just as he looks now!' and I saw Lord Mellifont stand before us with
				his sketch-block. I took in as we met him that he appeared neither
				suspicious nor blank; he simply stood there, as he stood always
				everywhere, for the principal feature of the scene. Naturally he had no
				sketch to show us, but nothjng could have better rounded off our actual
				conception of him than the way he fell into position as we approached
				(…) We stayed while the exhibition went on, and the conscious profiles
				of the peaks might to our apprehension have been interested in his
				success. (…[He gave Blanche the water-colour sketch] . . )
			'He'll have to rest after this,' Blanche said, dropping her eyes on her
				water-colour.
			'Indeed he will!' I raised mine to the window: Lord Mellifont had
				vanished. "He's already reabsorbed.'12
			
			7
			Suite C-3.3 Dialogue on The Anthropic Principle13
			
			
			Cyril Burst and Vyvyan Lord Throbbing are seated together on a
				reassuringly threadbare Louix XV, mauvely gazing at the vermillion
				lights over the Real Aqua Swimming Pool.
			
			Cyril: I say, Vyvyan, pass me a gold-tipped cigarette, there's a dear.
				You know, you butch thing, many cosmologists posit different levels of
				universes, hoping thereby to answer questions regarding the seeming
				uniqueness of our own. Dr Martin Rees, of Cambridge and the Astronomer
				Royal, says contemplating alternate universes could help scientists
				distinguish which features of our own universe are fundamental and
				necessary and which are accidents of cosmic history. A light, pet?
			
			Vyvyan: Oh, Cyril, when you talk like this I am aflame! Stroke my
				hyacinth hair and tell me ours is the cosmic accident. You may randomly
				kiss my slim-gilt lips.
			
			Cyril: Oh, don't! . . Dr Alan Guth of MIT introduced idea of inflation
				in 1980. His--the most artistic--universe is getting larger, and going
				faster. Guth says the universe is "the ultimate free lunch."
			
			Vyvyan: I love a free lunch, if it costs someone a great deal. Let's
				feast on nightingales' tongues and sip absinthe. I'll call down for more
				music and madder wine.
			
			Cyril: Oh, fickler than Willie Hughes! I long for constants like the
				speed of light. Only a narrow range of settings (for these constants) is
				suitable for the evolution of complexity or Life as We Know It.
			
			Vyvyan: Life as What? Say it again about the multiverse.
			
			Cyril: I will not. I try continually to avoid repetition.
			
			Vyvyan: What?
			
			Cyril: I try continually . . . Oh! Ashbery!
			
			Vyvyan: Auden! Auden! . . So my dear, despite these deafening drapes,
				is this a lucky universe, or what?
			
			Cyril: In 1974 Dr Brandon Carter, a theoretical physicist at MIT
				posited "the Anthropic Principle," asseverating that these coincidences
				were not just luck, but were rather necessary preconditions for us to be
				looking at the universe. After all, we are hardly likely to discover
				laws that are incompatible with our own existence.
			
			Vyvyan: Our mission, Cyril: contra the laws
				promulgated by fundamentalists, as in Iran or the United States.
			
			Cyril: How thrillingly political of you to say so, Vyvyan my unicornus.
				Freeman Dyson, another physicist, once said, "The universe in some sense
				must have known we were coming."
			
			Vyvyan: Yep!
			
			Cyril: Dr Steven Weinberg is positively Miltonic in his comments on the
				universe, which he sees bubbling progeny like yeast buds. According to
				string theory, Dr. Hogan of Washington says, the laws of physics that we
				mortals experience are low-energy, 4 dimensional shadows, of sorts, of a
				10- or 11-dimensional universe. cosmological constant.
			Ah, here's a snack; I'm ravenously puckish.. Oh! I thought you ordered
				carpaccio, but this is turnip tartare with nasturtium!
			
			Vyvyan: My own, economise now! And you are looking a trifle
				cosmological yourself.
			
			Cyril: Well, if you say so, my precious little fatty. Now, according to
				astronomical observations, otherwise undetectable energy--"dark
				energy"-- accounts for about two-thirds of the mass-energy of the
				universe today, outweighing matter two to one. But according to modern
				quantum physics, empty space should be seething with energy that would
				outweigh matter in the universe by far, far more, by a factor of at
				least 1060.
			
			Vyvyan: And what to wear in dark energy? So the speeding-up of
				inflation lends more energy than was thought to exist? And the
				cosmological constant,, a formula to account for this discrepancy, must
				be within ranges compatible with us!
			
			Cyril: Just, just so. And, as we know, the logical consequence of this
				is that we "queers" in our indolence have seen through the canard of
				vulgar Marxism. We live the principle that production is not the basis
				of human life.. Instead it is enjoyment! Fourier!
			
			Vyvyan: Ergo, my dear Cyril, what all we humans do is enjoy the
				impingement of this probably-unique world on us and ours on it, just
				like the lilies of the field. How lovely to be wanted by the entire
				universe, just so!
			8
			Suite K-347 The Mirror of Production
					14
				
			
			Flicking her jet beads at a bat, feeling very horny, Karen, Countess
				Dinesen-Youssopoff (nee Blitzen) can barely keep herself still on her
				twilit balcony. She is waiting for what this hotel obligingly calls "un
				ouvrier de santé sexuelle." Her daily meal of a strawberry and a glass
				of champagne long over, she smokes another opium-laced cigarette as she
				strokes her ropy throat. Through a geneology almost impossible to trace,
				Karen is the grand daughter of Prince Felix Youssopoff, the Russian
				queen who killed Rasputin. He made a Morganatic marriage, fled to
				Denmark after the Revolution and spent years intriguing with White
				Russians. Karen managed to recover her grandfather's Baku oil refineries
				and grew richer through the sale of his Rembrandts and a suit against
				CBS Television that proved her grandfather actually did murder the
				Czarina's starets.15
			
			She reads from her commonplace book, makes a notation in her crabbed
				half-Cyrillic hand.
			"The productive-man notion of Marx 'hallucinates man's predestination
				for the objective transformation of the world (or for the 'production'
				of oneself: today's generalized humanist theme--it is no longer a
				question of 'being' oneself but of 'producing' oneself, from conscious
				activity to the primitive 'productions' of desire16". Karen dials her message machine to leave this memorandum: "B
				quotes Marx for whom men 'begin to distinguish themselves from animals
				as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence…' Remember
				that."
			She asks Merle, her Maltese, "Why must man's vocation always be to
				distinguish himself from animals? Is man's existence an end for which he
				must find the means?"
			Sliding back the curtain on the sidelight of the door a little, Karen B
				critiques the notion of production of subsistence: "it is the
				instrumentalization of nature." She summons up Marx: 'Labor is, in the
				first place, a process in which both man and nature participate, and in
				which man of his own accord starts, regulates and controls the material
				re-actions between himself and nature. He opposes himself to nature as
				one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands,
				the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate nature's
				productions in a form adapted to his own wants.'17"
			"How tedious," Karen sighs. "Why can't these men see that labor is not
				the basis of human existence? Even Marcuse, for all his slavering after
				erotic freedom, says labor is grounded 'in an essential excess of human
				existence beyond every possible situation in which it finds itself and
				the world. . . [it] is necessary and eternally 'earlier' than play: it
				is the starting point, foundation and principle of play insofar as play
				is precisely a breaking off from labor and a recuperation for labor.18' But that is so wrong!"
			Taking her own version of luxury in an Henri III (1551-1589)
				straight-back wooden chair, Karen tightens her black toque and murmurs,
				"Marx doesn't see that in his symbolic exchanges primitive man (sic)
				does not gauge himself in relation to Nature. He is not aware of
				Necessity, a Law that takes effect only with the objectification of
				Nature."
			"Primitive 'society' does not exist as an instance apart from symbolic
				exchange; and this exchange never results from an 'excess' of
				production. It is the opposite: to the extent that these terms apply
				here, 'subsistence' and 'economic exchange' are the residue of symbolic
				exchange, a remainder.' "
			Impatiently re-telling her jet beads, she thinks, "survival is not a
				principle. We have made it one." She remembers Africa and her other
				lover, Jean Baudrillard, saying "For the primitives, eating, drinking,
				and living are first of all acts that are exchanged: if they are not
				exchanged, they do not occur. It is symbolic exchange, where the
				relation (not the 'social') is tied, and this exchange excludes any
				surplus: anything that cannot be exchanged or symbolically shared would
				break the reciprocity and institute power. Better yet, this exchange
				excludes all 'production.'"
			"Good old Jean," she sighs, "stealing from Bataille like that."
			The door chimes. A gorgeous young Arab rings her bell. With highly
				stylized sincerity, long eyelashes down, he tells Karen he is at her
				service. "My name is Ahmed Oedipus Ben Maas," he says, "and for me,
				'work' is something other than labor…The artisan lives his work as a
				relation of symbolic exchange, abolishing the definition of himself as
				'laborer' and the object as 'product of his labor.' "
			"Above all," Karen adds, lighting two of her cigarettes in the red gash
				of her mouth, "artisanal work is, according to etymology, 'demiurge.'"
			9 Rm. 1876 Ferd on the Brain
			
			I'm on assignment, re-building the organ at the "Petit Monde"
				experience at Euro Disney. Oddly, though the singing children are
				totally animatronic, dancing and piping their tunes by virtue of
				computer 1s and 0s, the organ is manual (and pedal). I spend my days
				scrambling through forests of big and little pipes, for it is a very big
				organ.
			One Sunday evening I'm relaxing around this musty French pool,
				reminiscing about a day in LA in 1992 when some rich queen threw a pool
				party for People With AIDS up in the hills, within spitting distance of
				the Hollywood Sign. Boys with purple blotches all over their backs and
				chests played in the sunny water, while a few long-timers sat in
				wheelchairs, wrapped in bright blankets, wheeled mushrooms in big straw
				hats. It was in that pool that I met Ferd.
			Ferd was not the host--he had no more money than it takes to buy a used
				Toyota pickup--but he was the big cheese because he was the director of
				the PWA group bubbling on the lawn with precious-- tentative--joy in the
				sunshine. We all loved Ferd then. He was healthy enough to work for our
				benefit 16 hours a day, he was edgy enough to get our group funded at
				the vanguard of sexual healing as both treatment and prevention
				strategy. Ferd was a little like our figurehead as we breasted the
				waves, our sun king as he ordered the world with and for us, and a
				little like a social director who, under his bonhomie, was transparently
				terrified of friendship.
			He slid into the water next to me and we bobbed up and down smiling and
				cruising, I trying to assure myself I was still cute and attractive,
				Ferd called upon to concentrate so long on one person that sexual desire
				snuck up on him unbidden--in fact, he would later say, unpermitted in
				his job as director and animator of our clump of radical patients and
				victims, since a sexual liaison would reduce his availability to
				"listen, handhold, inspire, cajole, hug, solace" the others he thought
				in his care. That afternoon he pulled himself out of the pool with a
				slight turgidity visible in the folds of his floppy yellow trunks and
				smiled as if he expected to be back to bob some more with me.
			He didn't come back soon, not until after I fended off a handsome guy
				with really bad AZT breath, who I knew wasn't likely to take up with me
				anyway. He was already twice a widow of wealthier, lonelier men who left
				him houses and money for cosmetic surgery. I had nothing to offer but
				sweaty organs.
			"We're walking next door to look at Aldous Huxley's house," Ferd said
				when he came back, smelling of sunblock, lime and vodka. "Want to come
				along?" I did. The Huxley property, explained our host, was really just
				a crater as a fire had destroyed the building where Aldous wrote and
				took his LSD, where Laura struggled on alone until 1979. The Hollywood
				Sign was so close that the OOD took up most of the view on one side.
			Ferd started in about his acid trips. He had met Leary at Millbrook
				once in 67, he had done light shows at the Fillmore with Janis, Country
				Joe, The Incredible String Band (one of his fey favorites), Sly and the
				Family Stone at the Electric Circus. "I wish there was still acid to be
				taken," he said, "now that I'm not scared about blurting out 'I'm gay'
				to some straight hippie companion."
			"That must have happened twenty years ago," I replied. "Surely you've
				come to terms with all of that by now. After all, here we are all
				together, having fun, living proof that God doesn't punish the wicked
				with anything more than painful, ugly death and stigmatized suffering."
			"Yes, surely I should feel cheered by your reminder of how good we have
				it," Ferd said. "But let's don't call each other Shirley. Actually I
				take anti-depressants now, so I don't bother with scared or unhappy any
				more.
			"I think our consciousness should be altered, early and often." he told
				me, his good eye engaging mine. "We need to experience being without
				relation to time--escape from a conception of a forward moving series of
				events the most sense-rich of which felt as the present and less rich
				assigned to a recallable but fading past. Further, the brain's capacity
				to take in and re-view sensory input led to the development of neural
				pathways that could access and perceive or experience the occurrence of
				review and cogitate on the process itself. Sensory input is reviewed
				through the same neural pathways (or analogous or related or proximate
				ones) that process raw sensory input. It is unclear whether the brain
				always knows the difference between processing the sensory input we
				usually think of as perception of reality and processing the processing
				which, as mirrors can reflect each other, can approach infinity as sense
				data become perceptions, become organized ideas, become abstract
				categories and then categories of categories. Given what little is
				understood about the brain, it is not possible to say whether these
				processes are or are not organized in hierarchies. The brain may assign
				more or less attention energy, ranking by importance or immediacy or
				proximity or some other order--or not.
			"The result of all this, I think, is that humans have a brain that
				processes sensory and internal mental phenomena at too many levels, too
				often, too much, with inadequate mechanism to turn the processing off.
				We have brains too good for our own good; we think and abstract feelings
				and memories too much. This ceaseless idling is what we have learned to
				call our feelings, however remote the neural processing may be from
				somatic reactions to events perceived as happening now. Like HAL2000,
				our brain (and by brain I keep trying to mean all the data processing
				mechanisms from senses to memory to thinking) thinks what it does is
				real. What psychological literature and philosophy have always
				confounded--the subject and object and later the divided subject--become
				less compelling as explanation and certainly as a concept to provide a
				comfortable relation to 'external reality.' But the brain is best seen
				as actively seeking, processing and thinking at all levels
				simultaneously: consciousness is a trick of our brains describing us to
				ourselves, stringing processes and events into a self, asserting to us
				that the self of today is the same one as any other day, selecting data
				and memories to substantiate itself."
			"Yeah, you're right," I said. I never thought he was sexy after that.
			10 Reception Desk
			
			While MonaLisa recuperates, her girlfriend Novy might fill in at the
				front desk. Usually dressed for her main job as Conductor on Wild Ride
				de M. Toad, she would be irritable in a pantsuit that barely stretches
				across her chest and chafes her crotch. Novy might be musing about her
				lover or daydreaming about her brothers. She'd not be impressed by the
				small bald man across the counter, signing in as Mobe 68.
			"Will you be needing any special attentions, Mr. Mobe 68?"
			"No, just be sure my car is plugged in to the charger and send up 12
				bottles of Vichy water. And put Ferd in the room next to mine."
			"Very good, Mr. Mobe 68. And here are the keys for you and Mr. Ferd."
				She might think to herself that these two were pop music has-beens from
				2002; she'd put them in the smelly suite on the fourth floor.
				"Overlooking the pool, nice views."
			As they walk toward the elevator, the organ grinder might come up to
				them and ask, "Aren't you . . .?"
			"Yes, I'm. Mo. .
			"Ferd? Remember me from Being Alive PWA parties?"
			"Oh yes, I remember . um. . Bill, . Aldous Huxley! And of course you
				recognize my boss, Mo . . ."
			"Never mind, just meet me upstairs. Nice, . . .Bill?"
			All three would look at their shoes (one pair of Pradas, two pairs of
				canvas sneakers) as Mobe 68 walks away.
			"Well, that wasn't a bit awkward. So Bill, how funny to see you here.
				What are you doing?"
			Bill might be feeling a little nonplussed himself, and may already be
				regretting this encounter. In an attempt to make things easier he might
				answer, "I'm rebuilding an organ at EuroDisney, and I'm running pretty
				late. Can we have a drink later and catch up?"
			"Of course, let's call each other. I'm up in what they call the
				Vice-Presidential Suite. Mo' is a great guy and more a friend than a
				boss, really."
			"Cool. Call you tonight." He'd kiss Ferd and walk quickly to the Disney
				shuttle outside.
			Mobe 68 meanwhile would have gone up, sharing the elevator with an
				middle-aged Black man who looks very familiar.
			"Are you a musician?"
			"I was, for a long time. Chicago Art Ensemble. Joseph is my name."
			"Wow! Joseph Jamaal, I saw you play in Chicago a few years ago, Your
				chanting and clarinet were awesome! With Leroy Jenkins doing incredible
				things on the violin. I'm Mobe 68."
			"Thanks, young man. I've heard your music too. Here to do a recording
				gig?"
			"No, man, I have no plans at all. I just travel now."
			At the third floor, an emaciated woman could get on carrying a Maltese
				with rheumy eyes and a bad underbite, as Joseph walks off, saying.
				"Well, here's my floor. Nice to meet you, Mobe 68, but be cool--the past
				is emptiness; 'here and now.'19"
			The woman, Countess Yousopoff-Blitzen, might not be concerned that the
				elevator is going up. She would know that her WTO colleagues wait for
				her in the Snivilling Lounge. She'd look up, expecting a mirrored
				ceiling, smoothing her throat and lighting a cigarette.
			"Excuse me, I don't think you can smoke in here," Mobe 68 objects.
			"Silence," Karen would croak and jab the down button. "This must be
				your floor. Please get out."
			As Mobe 68 turns his key, he could be trying to concentrate on
				Christian compassion and the tasks ahead of him.
			
			11 Foucault's Nephew
			Come rain or shine, my custom is to go for a stroll in Disney's Idiocy
				of Rural Life environment every afternoon about five. I hold discussions
				with myself on politics, love, taste or philosophy, and let my thoughts
				wander in complete abandon, leaving them free to follow the first wise
				or foolish idea that comes along, like those young rakes we see in the
				Repressed Sexuality Land who run after a giddy-looking little piece with
				a laughing face, sparkling eye and tip-tilted nose, only to leave him
				for another, accosting them all, but sticking to none.
			If it is too cold or wet I take shelter in the American TacoBilious
				Café and amuse myself watching hustlers play Texas Hold-'em. One day
				after dinner there I was, watching a great deal but saying little and
				listening to as little as I could, when I was accosted by one of the
				weirdest characters in this Land of ours that has not been sparing of
				them. The notions of good and evil must be strangely muddled in his
				head, for the good qualities nature has given him he displays without
				ostentation, and the bad ones without shame. Marcel is devilishly good
				looking, a queer bird, and has made himself the boon companion of every
				rich party boy in all of EuroDisney. He comes by it honestly, as he is
				the "nephew" of the great Michel Foucault.
			He accosts me: "Hello, Mr. Philosopher. Are your thoughts consoling you
				in these troubling times?"
			I: Not much, but when I have nothing better to do I enjoy watching the
				players.
			HE: Oh, they're not here to be watched. Not at these prices!
				Thirty-five euros a quarter, whew!
			I: And how have you been keeping yourself? I heard you were hooked up
				with Dr. Dread who runs the Red Hanky Pavilion. No new vice squad
				complications there?
			HE: No, he's turned it into an 18+ dance floor, and it's writhing with
				e-trash heteroid clothes hangers. Now it's called American Idyll.
			I: Don't you welcome the acceptance of our kind? Imitation is sincere
				flattery?
			HE: If that's acceptance, fuck it. "If we are all part of God," as the
				saintly Mrs. Cresswell said, "then God must indeed be horrible.20" I can't see anything
				special in being queer anymore. "We're all over!" they keep screaming..
				Yes, yes. We're over. We're passé and boring. Though some clueless
				ladies continue to sing. "queer planet."
			I: You however, continue pursuing "practices and pleasures?" You must
				have clients up the . . .
			HE: Up! Just to play for a brief 16-hour party. Ugh, the prep. (Marcel
				suddenly began to act out his words with the most extraordinary
				postures. )
			Trimming, then shaving your balls. I fell in the bathtub the other day.
				I was standing on the edge, trying to see my ass to shave it, when I
				slipped and cracked a disc. Now my hands tingle all the time. Then
				there's the cleaning out. the showershot or worse, the bag. and the
				10-day, 20-day runs. slammers the worst. I finally said to Dr. Dread
				that he was a sleazy old fairy buying muscles instead of love. He sent
				me to the EuroComfort Inn for 2 days and now I'm on the street again.
				They only let me stay at the Real Desert Hotel, and in a mildewed room
				they can't rent, cause my uncle once endorsed the place.
			I: It's no wonder you are so abandoned, Marcel For that matter, doesn't
				crystal just exaggerate our fundamental alone-ness in the world?
			HE: Mr. Philosopher, I may be tweaking, but I know my ontology. "It's
				understandable, but wrong, the notion that each of us is alone,
				imprisoned within the individual cranium, when in fact even the physical
				universe of matter depends on us to exist, and even more desperately the
				sperm and egg that make us and the genes and social conditions that
				shape each of us. The other is always before us, demanding that we be
				selves in response. It's fatuous (no, self-centered and delusional) to
				think we think alone. Our mythologies of lost or fractured selves
				gluttonize--slobber--over the illusions of sameness and difference, self
				and other."21
			
			I: You know all of this is artifact of language, no? Althusser?
			HE: I've been interpellated more times than you can count. When I am
				interpellated then I am clocked, called out, made to answer to hey you,
				but the you I create (in response) has to answer back, has to
				interpellate the cop. I is always a response, not to the mirror, but to
				an other. All the world--Disney included, is hung up on the fears of
				alienation, disintegration that our dear fathers lived to feel.
			My own uncle! All of this is the tragedy of the last Century. WWI
				frightened Europe out of its class complacency and squelched important
				social movements. The Revolution of 1917 created a hope, and at least a
				pole of support for liberation of the colonies. The Great Depression
				frightened the world into a few Keynesian reforms, but then WWII sent
				all our men to war, let them kill in the company of other men, and then
				sent them home to individual suburban families. None of them knew how to
				be with women or children, so then came the baby boom. Feeding on
				schedule or feeding on demand, but overfeeding. And the Cold War and the
				Draft to Viet Nam. My own father and mother are still lost, tripping in
				the Algerian desert somewhere since the 60s.
			No wonder the 60s were aflame. Children left to crusade against racism,
				war, sexual oppression. Suddenly, Marcel shouts, Tim, come over here,
				man!
			I: Who is this angelic youth with white hair making toward us?
			HE: Timmy Tilden, nephew of Bill Tilden, tennis star of the 20s and
				30s, who was imprisoned twice for sex with teenage boys, died in 1953.
				Poor man, his only girlfriend said he "felt things so deeply. . I never
				saw him with anybody who could have been his confidant. How must it be
				like that22?"
			I: Can we change our lives?
			HE: I hope so. She said "There must have been so many things deep
				within him that he could never talk about. I suppose he died of a broken
				heart." Anyway, Bill's younger brother hooked up with Tim's mom--she was
				a maid for Tracy Lord but the Tildens ran her out of Philadelphia with a
				film crew. A long story shortened: .her grandson, the Tilden's
				grand-nephew, was rescued from a homeless shelter in Hollywood and
				brought to France by Mr. Sithole.. . Tim's exceptional looking, but stay
				away. He's seventeen, falling into bad habits already : an albino black
				marketeer--small-time drugs, cheap diamond smuggling--he's so innocent
				he'll hurt you.
			I: And why do you have so much to say about this dangerous young man?
			HE: Because he's my young bud, aren't you Timmy? I take care of my
				red-eyed little polar bear.
			TIMMY: You know I hate that name! Can you get me a drink, please?
			HE: I'll get you all you need Tim. Come and party with a couple
				military studs? It's all set up, they just called on my cel. In my room
				tonight? Lots of favors!.
			On that note, I made my adieux, and strolled off to TomorrowLand.
			12
			Rm. 1954 Joseph and His Brother
			Joseph Jamaal is not completely enthused to be recognized, as he is a
				fugitive from US justice, accused (falsely) of complicity in Black
				Liberation Army killings of police in the 1970s. He is waking his
				employer, Siegfried Rheinfahrt, from his midmorning nap. Laying aside
				volumes of Lenin and Heidegger, he massages the old man's knees until he
				opens his ice-blue eyes.
			"Ja . . aah . . . In the jugness of the jug, sky and earth dwell. .
					..23
			
			"You are awake now, Herr Siegfried," Joseph says calmly.
			"Ahh, Joseph," he croaks. "I think I understand. Kant talks about
				things in the same way as Meister Eckhart and means by this term 'thing'
				something that is. But for Kant, that which is becomes the object of a
				representing that runs its course in the self-consciousness of the human
				ego. The thing-in-itself means for Kant: the object-in-itself. To Kant,
				the character of the 'in-itself' signifies that the object is an object
				in itself without reference to the human act of representing it, that
				is, without the opposing 'ob-' by which it is first of all put before
				this representing act. :'Thing -in-itself,' thought in a rigorously
				Kantian way, means an object that is no object for us, because it is
				supposed to stand, stay put, without a possible before; for the human
				representational act that encounters it.' It is very materialist,
				despite the awful neologisms."
			Joseph straightens Siegfried's sparse white hair and tells him, "The
				Buddha teaches that sense impressions can be understood as relationships
				of conscious being to being. The "categories" of Kant only interfere
				with this relationship. Heidegger is closer."
			"Ja, yes, I think so." He reads " 'This appropriating mirror-play of
				the simple onefold of earth and sky, divinities and mortals, we call the
				world. The world presences by worlding. . . ' "
			Joseph reads further, "'That means: the world's worlding cannot be
				explained by anything else nor can it be fathomed through anything else.
				This impossibility does not lie in the inability of our human thinking
				to explain and fathom n this way. Rather, the inexplicable and
				unfathomable character of the world's worlding lies in this, that causes
				and grounds remain unsuitable for the world's worlding. ' Herr
				Siegfried, Heidegger is saying what the Buddha says--'As soon as human
				cognition here calls for an explanation, it fails to transcend the
				world's nature, and falls short of it. The human will to explain just
				does not reach to the simpleness of the simple onefold of worlding'.
				This is pretty good dharma teaching."
			"Joseph my Black brother, what can an old Communist like me do with
				this dharma? Am I just disappointed at the end of all I believed in? Is
				there no revolution to be made, now?"
			"The wheel turns," Joseph says with compassion. He helps his patient to
				the bathroom, where Siegfried hopes to squeeze a few drops through his
				urethra. While Siegfried sits and reminisces about Trevi, Joseph
				replaces his books and prepares him a lunchtime fentanyl injection.
				"Would you like your yogurt enema before or after? I can read to you
				from the April Theses 24 if you like."
			"No, Joseph, sing for me, and play the harmonium. Sing the 'Red Thread
				Blues.'"
			
			
				The Red Thread Blues
				
					25
				
			
			The vitality of living labor
			Confronts the dead power of capitalist command
			I say autonomist theory contrasts the vitality of living labor
			With the dead power of capitalist command
			The working people historically assert their power
			to take the structures in their hands.
			
			Intrinsic to the capital-relation
			Is the class struggle of the working class
			Prior to and more dynamic than capitalist restructuring
			Is the class struggle that constitutes the working class
			Think of the demand for an eight-hour day;
			it kicked the bosses in the ass.
			
			Yes, people, productive labor
			Is now that which produces society itself
			Let's use the combination of our productive labor
			To sieze freedom however momentarily and redistribute wealth
			Autonomists say we can communicate our social inventiveness
			and make the world something else.
			 
			The active subject of production
			Is the increasingly undifferentiated working class
			The wellspring of change in production
			Is the self-autonomizing working class
			Beyond mere resistance are moments of freedom;
			they're real but then they pass.
			
			Capital's restructurings "subsume" not only the workplace
			But society as a whole
			I tell you in its processes of globalization
			Reproduction of labor power occupies a crucial but unacknowledged role
			That's why welfare moms are threatening,
			and they had to end the dole
			
			Guerillas moved like fish in the water
			Threatening to cut off resources and lands
			Oh yeah, in Vietnam, Guatemala and elsewhere liberation fighters
			Challenged resource allocation in the jungles and the sands
			The fall of communism, sadly,
			demobilized support for progressive guerilla bands.
			
			Global capital then broke down traditional village structures
			Marched women and children off the farm to town
			Tragically, capital emiseration in favela and shanty
			Is what happens when age-old geography breaks down
			But international mass migrations result in newer combinations,
			where resistance can abound.
			
			Husbands dead, women and children are left with "free" choices
			To choose between child laborers or whores
			A prerequisite for capitalist modernization
			Is a landless desperate, anomic labor force
			War, disease and famine,
			threaten to cut off food production at the source.
			
			But struggle to create ourselves as subjects
			Disrupts and tears apart systems of capitalist rule
			Despite regimes of power, humans make themselves subjects
			Sabotaging, rectifying, evading, the intentions of global rule
			Sometimes distorted and mistaken,
			self-creation is quite evident among youth in school.
			
			In the north abandoned plants and ruined communities
			Where privilege is evanescing, no longer so secure
			In the south devastation and dollar-a-month factories
			But then moments of freedom where people's relationships are less
				obscure
			Creative combinations of people
			are what the global dominators most fear.
			
			The points where operations can be ruptured
			Affirm labor's fundamental otherness from capital
			Let's put our hands to the points to be ruptured
			And assert that we are sentient like any other plants and animal
			We'll show the Blairs and Cheneys
			that their hierarchies of power can be overturned, not
			just disrupted!
			
			"Siegfried, did you know it's taken me years to be able to sing blues?"
				Joseph remembers how impatient he was in 1965, how unsophisticated Otis
				Spann seemed, saying on the radio, "If you don't dig the blues, you've
				got a hole in your soul." How Joseph and his peers wanted to move ahead,
				express the complexity of new feelings, of the new situation they faced.
				You had to respect those bluesmen, but we knew they couldn't understand
				what needed to be done.26
			
			"I didn't understand, really. I was so moved by James Baldwin--the sins
				of our fathers. We wanted the Art Ensemble's music to go further than
				Ornette or Coltrane, way beyond what we thought good ol' blues could do.
				I wish I knew then what I've had to learn so slowly."
			13 In the NightKitchen
			Caprice Sithole sets down her paring knife in the bowl of okra. She
				whistles through the gap in her front teeth as she reads from the Herald
				Tribune:
			"This is the first communiqué from the ELF Liberation Front Today, in a
				worldwide coordinated action, Operation Heraclitean Fire, we have burned
				out all the HumVee vehicles-- "hummers"-- in the Disney "parks" in
				Japan, California, Florida, France. These monster guzzlers turn the
				hydrocarbon resources of the Developing --read, super-exploited-- World
				into fumes of asphyxiation that linger low to the earth. We struck a
				blow for little people of all ages. And don't forget, "hummer" used to
				mean something nice."
			
			Caprice worries about her husband. "I'm happy they can't pin this on
				him. He's been on the job day and night since he got back." She enjoys a
				humorous, danger-filled marriage with Ndabaningi Sithole III. His
				Reverend uncle was the founder of ZAPU (1961), then ZANU (1963 with
				Robert Mugabe), then tried for attempted assassination of Robert Mugabe
				in 199627. Caprice and Neddy had to beg and borrow
				100,000 zimdollars to escape from Zimbabwe, leaving their professions
				and the revolutionary opposition for cooking28.and
				managing the Hotel Real Desert.
			Neddy has recently returned from one of his frequent "investment
				opportunities," driving a fleet of trucks through the United States
				paying thousands of pre teens to take paper napkins from McDonald's and
				other fast food venues. He ships them home and to countries in Central
				Asia with moderate profits. Interpol is already searching for The Napkin
				Ring. Caprice believes they must change their activities.
			"The bigger profits are in sanitary napkin dispensers. Just try to get
				Kotex or Tampax in Harare," she counsels her husband. Neddy is not
				convinced; he is at work modifying and lowering electric dryers for
				wipe-with-your-hands countries.
			Their children Xoliswa and Jonah, think he is so old-fashioned. The
				only Zimbabweans on their minds are Stella Chiweshe29 and Oliver Mtukudzi--and sometimes Methembe Ndlovu30 and the Highlanders football team. To make
				downloading of their music stars easier, they wish their country back in
				the Commonwealth and the IMF.31
			
			14 Valet Parking
			Two black HumVees bearing the World Security Operations S.A. logo pull
				to the curb. Two jar-headed young men, right hands inside the lapels of
				their black Purple Label suits, each carrying a titanium computer case
				handcuffed to his wrist, step out of the vehicles and survey the
				perimeter. From the back seat, a man with deep-set eyes, black-browed
				under a silver military haircut, commands them to park the cars
				themselves and secure them. "We are meeting with the WTO crowd in
				fifteen minutes. Check for digital positioning and, of course,
				explosives-- and shred these papers."
			He strides, as erect as always, to meet the manager, who is
				obsequiously bowing to greet the new arrival. "You are Mr. Oliver South?
				Would you like to go to your rooms, or shall I take you directly to the
				bunker room? Any papers you wish to prepare?"
			"It's Colonel South. (USMC, Ret.) Please get me a bottle of Absolut and
				some Vichy water," South curtly replies. "You may take me to the
				Countess."
			"I will personally bring your drinks, and Achmed will take you across.
				Achmed!"
			Inspecting the Arab-looking beauty through a flat green lens, South
				presently says, "OK. You're clean. Lead on." At age 51, South retains
				the body tension of a US Marine of 30, but the Christian fascist
				ideology of his more physical early career has been tempered by a
				philosophical acquiescence to his and others' weaknesses. A co-founder
				of WSO, South knows the World Traders are near to discharging his firm
				over the flaming stink at Disney.
			"It's a very low-intensity operation," he says to himself, "and the
				fanatic amateurs can hurt children lining up for rides if we don't find
				them fast. More than reputations are at stake. I wish it was as
				clear-cut as Vietnam, or even Nicaragua. . .Africans all over this place
				too. Our own barbarians vs theirs now!"
			"Get the generalissimo a bottle, " the manager tells Novy.
			The jarheaded men return, both on cel phones. One is seen nodding and
				looking in the direction of Marcel, who is also on his cel--all checking
				watches.
			15
			Party Out of Bounds
			As Tim walks in between sheets of black plastic, Marcel is yelling
				"Attention!" at the two jarheaded men from the HumVees.
			"Strip you maggots," Marcel barks. Tim is not sure whether he should
				take his own clothes off. In doubt, he sits on one of the mattresses
				strewn about the slippery floor.
			"Put these on each other, pigs," Marcel continues to shout, throwing
				black latex jockstraps at the naked men. "Come here, Tim," he growls.
				"Put these blindfolds on them and this mask on your own face. And get
				into those leather chaps."
			As Tim covers their faces, Marcel handcuffs the two and pulls chains
				down from the rafters. "Hook these guys up. . . Take this belt and
				batter their backsides while I get some hits ready to slam them up."
			The musty room above the garages is a storehouse for all the junk and
				detritus left behind over the 75 years the hotel has accepted guests.
				But tonight, a smeary cubicle has been put up with a staple gun,; the
				party space confined to the penumbra of a tall white candle, the
				flickering light and mysterious aroma of beeswax disorienting the
				jarheads. Marcel adjusts two monitors to play continuous hardcore porn
				to a soundtrack of Bartok and Lygeti, and strews condoms, paper towels
				and Crisco cans all around the mattresses on the plastic-coated floor.
			In a baritone of arrogated authority, he says to the men stretched
				before him, "We will cultivate 'the self' by means of an ascesis, an
				'art of life.'" He shoots into their veins what could not be called
				'good drugs,' but ones that obliterate the subject, leaving only
				obsessive repetitions of the impulses to stimulate nerve endings.
			Coughing and then moaning, the twin pigs cry out, "'Self' is not a
				personal identity so much as it is a relation of reflexivity, a relation
				of the human subject to itself in its power and its freedom. " 32
			
			Marcel shoves Tim forward. He urges Tim into domination postures, and
				snaps latex gloves on his white hands. Marble white and leather black, a
				masked version of the empathic, equivocal Bernini angel, arrow in hand,
				sending St. Teresa into ecstasy, Tim shimmers in the light playing on
				his lubricated youthful muscles, his masculine energy rising to the
				rhythms of Marcel's rough power
			Together, they drive the men, now sobbing and vocalizing their fearful
				rapture, to greasy black leather slings. At Marcel's instigation, Tim
				utters these hypnotic words: "You have no identity here. You are only
				vessels for pleasure. . . something which passes from one person to
				another. It is not secreted by identity."
			Marcel speaks oracular words as his hands move in profound violation of
				nature's fundament: "I don't think that this movement of sexual
				practices has anything to do with the disclosure or the uncovering of
				S/M tendencies deep within our unconscious, and so on. I think that S/M
				is much more than that; it's the real creation of new possibilities of
				pleasure, which people had no idea about previously. The idea that S/M
				is related to a deep violence, that S/M practice is a way of liberating
				this violence, this aggression, is stupid. . .I think it's a kind of
				creation, a creative enterprise, which has as one of its main features
				what I call the desexualization [i.e, the 'degenitalization'] of
				pleasure. The idea that bodily pleasure should always come from sexual
				pleasure, and the idea that sexual pleasure is the root of all our
				possible pleasure--I think that's something quite wrong."
			Tim hears Marcel saying, "This is our century's only 'brand new'
				contribution to the sexual armamentarium. The 19th C invented myriad
				species of perverse sexual desire, but virtually nothing new in the way
				of sexual pleasure had been created for millennia. . . We delve and
				ravage 'the self' by hand because 'the self is a new strategic
				possibility. . . not because it is the seat of our personality but
				because it is the point of entry of the personal into history.' We
				perform 'the crucial work of rupture, of social and psychological
				disintegration, that may be necessary to permit new forms of life to
				come into being. but there is no guarantee that they will come into
				being. . . '"
			Over and over through the shadows of night the jarheads, recumbent like
				Caravaggio's St. Paul on the roadway or St. Francis receiving stigmata,
				grunt their bodily assent to transcendence in pleasure
			Volunteers 2004:
			A New Year's Grasping for the Politics and Jouissance of
				Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers, released Nov(?)
				1969: Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Jorma Kaukonen, Spencer
				Dryden, Jack Casady
			We Might Be Together
			A few of us were together. We had almost-completely lovely times with
				our young bodies together ejaculating enough to clear the major toxins
				(leaving what were, after all, only subsidiary poisons of sexual
				deviation and guilt felt by some who were out of phase with cosmic
				duality of sex vision), , although we went out/in on long and fulfilling
				trips together. We had gone to places so sublime that difference was
				irrelevant--to us at least. We also yearned to be together with the
				racial Other. We could have been together. Then, we would have thought
				we recognized each other together.
			
			The Intellectual Origins
			The thought was that repression of natural impulses was a reification
				of the restriction to bare necessities for labor under capitalist
				relations of production. At first we noticed that abundance (not
				necessarily personal abundance, although the post-WWII/Cold War takeoff
				of the US economy afforded better living for much higher proportions of
				the US population) was not satisfying to us, although it seemed to be
				sufficient for our parents who had suffered serious deprivation during
				the Depression and then horrifying war (our fathers ignorant men thrown
				together in foreign lands to face death with only each other's bodies
				for support--while longing for the comfort of love and habit sent by the
				women who became our mothers in letters to unknowable islands and
				bivouacs). Our dads came home, moved into nuclear family houses, farther
				from their parents, aunts, uncles, etc than ever before, tried to live
				with rectitude and diligence amid rising prices and elevated standards
				of liveable housekeeping, tried to be husbands and fathers to
				uncomprehending wives and children. No wonder so many became alcoholic
				and silent, no wonder so many women secretly suffocated in those
				single-family units.
			Children's first exposure was to Dr. Spock's kindly strictures to feed
				on schedule, an agonizing commitment for parents who heard their babies'
				cries as echoes of their own childish deprivations and wanted to provide
				better for their offspring. The moms and dads capitulated to a makeshift
				of indulgence and vaccination, hoping for clean, healthy children who
				read Dick and Jane as if they were true.
			As we children of the baby boom grew older we had more free time than
				any previous generation on earth, free time to undergo the tidal waves
				of adolescent hormones and to read Catcher in the Rye and even On the
				Road in study halls, although we also memorized Pledges of Allegiance,
				Declarations of Independence and believed them.
			Then televisions began to show us vibrant Black children singing their
				way to jail for "freedom," and revealed a whole other America that
				wasn't privileged and purposeless. We were electrified by the
				righteousness of their new Black way and the brutality of the old
				segregationist intransigience.
			We were educated by American Bandstand to the rigors of Cold War
				dating, and those of us who couldn't get dates understood that we were
				inadequate. Our salvation came from the post-colonial British, from the
				Beatles who were able to repackage Black American music to our
				ill-formed tastes and make us happy with dancing that did not require
				touching. The Beatles neat appearance belied their snotty, grotty
				sarcastic resistance to the parts of life we agreed were uncool. And the
				Rolling Stones were better than greasers, almost evil but British so
				they couldn't beat us up.
			So many of us escaped to college. We suddenly found friends who did not
				think we were inadequate, or at least we shared inadequacy and fumbled
				for relief from restrictions of our behavior. We read and we shared,
				Revolver and Bob Dylan, and we began to grow hair, to smoke pot and to
				trip. Trips were dangerous explorations of cosmic reality, and they were
				serious, only occasionally joyous, but so revelatory as to be precious
				signposts of the fulfillment we thought we lacked. In the swirling
				hallucinations we also felt the reality of our own bodies, sweating,
				breathing, ingesting, eliminating, fucking--thrilling. And yet the world
				was going wrong.
			
			A list of what prepared for 1969-1970
			The Bible
			Lincoln's speeches
			Grapes of Wrath
			Leaves of Grass
			Great Expectations
			Another Country
			poems of Wordsworth, then Keats
			Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience
			Walden
			The Way of Zen
			The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
			Pilgrim's Progress
			Giovanni's Room
			Ten Days That Shook the World
			Irrational Man
			The Stranger
			Black Boy
			The Immoralist
			Siddhartha
			Naked Lunch
			Vietnamese dispatches explaining imperialism and People's War
			Battle of Algiers
			Bonnie and Clyde
			Midnight Cowboy
			Lonesome Cowboys
			Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
			Howl
			The Wretched of the Earth
			Huckleberry Finn
			The Second Sex
			Treasure Island
			Winnie-the-Pooh
			The Tibetan Book of the Dead
			Eisenhower's farewell speech
			Kennedy's inaugural
			The Assassinations
			Ond-Dimensional Man
			I and Thou
			God In Search of Man
			The Power Elite
			Autobiography of Malcolm X
			Mao's "On Contradiction" and "Combat Liberalism"
			What Is To Be Done?
			Democracy in America
			Port Huron Statement
			The Symposium
			Chicago Seed, East Village Other, SF Oracle, Berkeley Barb
			Paradise Now
			The Cockettes
			
			We were opposed--violently. Someone fantasized Armed Love--even a
				poster about the hippie mother and baby, the freak father with a rifle.
				We should be together, if only we could, the longing for uniting, the
				revulsion at how untogether our world was, the push to overthrow, the
				inability to tolerate our pain, our own pain--given to us through the
				unprincipled and unprecedented wealth of this empire, We had never been
				denied before; we called for an end to the obvious sickeningly
				conspicuous waste, shrieking injustice of prejudice against the Blacks,
				who were beautiful and sexy and mild. Our confusion when this bad was
				not remedied was relieved through the Communist Manifesto, made
				immediate and then strategic by the Vietnamese and Che, but still
				uneducated and heedless regarding our close-to-home contradictions of
				women's oppression and sexualities.
			
			The Songs33
			
			We Can Be Together
			We are all outlaws in the eyes of America
			In order to survive we steal cheat lie forge fred hide and deal
			We are obscene lawless hideous dangerous dirty violent and young
			But we should be together
			Come on all you people standing around
			Our life's too fine to let it die and
			We can be together
			All your private property is
			Target for your enemy
			Dangerous, obscene, hideous, dirty, violent and young? We are not quite
				proud of ourselves. A hymn to us, an anthem to tearing down the walls we
				felt between ourselves, while we were aware but daunted by those walls
				within ourselves. Could our trips together lead us out of the brutality
				of wealth, consumerism,? Could, should it be war?
			
			Good Shepherd
			And then a step back, recusitating of Christian imagery, good shepherd,
				though walking through the valley of the shadow of death (the shadow,
				not the death) what could we be hoping for from the son of god.
				handsome, generous, a cross to the other shore?
			One for to make my heart rejoice
			Can't you hear my lambs a-callin
			Oh good shepherd
			Feed my sheep
			Stay away from the bad people, and the guns.
			The risking of arrogance in preaching
			the risking of irony, the risk of meaning, really meaning, it.
			
			The Farm
			Soaring, twanging, milk and cows and honey, way out in the country. Oh
				so good, granola and soy, cold and damp in winter, sunny and fog-free in
				summer--oh, late summer golden hills, a little dope if you could, living
				on the farm, male and female striving
			
			Hey Fredrick
			Way out there, you have a choice--usually--to let it be high or higher.
				Your contradictory humanness, body of blood, brain basket, coursing
				organs, a voice trying to break through to you, to you in your personal
				ears, crackles of sublime interference intercourse and guitar notes too
				complicated their screaming simplicity, electronic fuzz,
			Loving eyes look down on you
			Sheets and a pillow
			How old will you have to be before you
			Stop believing
			That those eyes will look down on you
			That way forever
			nobody wants to boogie, only to sit awestruck by the single notes, the
				ones that carry through the six realms of beings to being it goes on to
				mere hallucination
			
			Turn My Life Down
			A man asks you to look into his eyes, his borrowed moments. can he give
				me moments, can I give him his, oh no, he is not for me, but by
				miraculous means he is here for me, turning me down,
			When I see you next time round look into my eyes
			Where we'd be never could decide
			Borrowed moments they cannot fill the moments of our lives
			And wishful thinking leaves me no place to hide
			but so wounded that his turning down is turning towards him, nothing to
				say becdause he is a man among men and women, not my kind (a man among
				women and men) no place to hide
			
			Wooden Ships
			And then the hawsers creak and the wind is so strong and capable of
				carrying us over to the other side, everybody smiles in the same
				language . Who won? Let the good win, even if they won't take me Wont
				they take me? There are a few of us, aren't there? We are not post-yet
				and the berries will keep us both alive on this simple wooden platform,
				on these very free and easy winds, leaving you to sail toward the sun
				(taking off at night so as not to burn) Do I have to take a sister,
				can't I take a brother? Power of leaving, watch all the past die, you
				don't need us. Does the fleet need me, can I go? What if I'm found out?
				The way it's supposed to be, very free,, no--no, no-no; no, no, no--go
				ride the music
			Very free
			And gone
			NO C'MON
			GO RIDE THE MUSIC
			C'MON RIDE IT CHILD
			
			Eskimo Blue Day
			moving it changes its name and its game, but doesn't mean shit to that
				magnificent tree spreading across the eyescreen, eel swimmer fantastic,
				love electric glimmer, and those pecking, noodling, fingers mumbling
				into me, can this pleasure be taken me taken do I have strength to dance
				when I am alone, surrounded by the assumptions, the natural thing, but
				irony makes a slim space for me, in redwood
			If you don't mind heat in your river and
			Fork tongue talking from me
			Swim like an eel fantastic snake
			Take my love when it's free
			Electric feel with me
			You call it loud
			But the human crowd
			Doesn't mean shit to a tree
			entering the stream, too much cold in one place breaks, it's here in
				the trees. Is it me?
			
			A Song for All Seasons
			that country twang so dangerous, so hideously hellish, ironic again,
				materialistic, not to be believed as oracular
			I guess your life just ain't really that complete
			You know your car with which I was impressed
			Well I hear that it's gonna be repossessed
			Well I thought you had it made
			But you ain't even paid
			For the things that you've bought
			Since the acid test
			disregard those reality aspects
			
			Meadowlands
			Back to the fantasy of soviet power, collectivist nostalgia: if only
				they could have crystallized the revolutionary moment, but if only they
				can aid the Vietnamese, we can defeat US imperialism.
			
			Volunteers
			Bass necessary for revolution, gotta revolution, VOA a thrift store on
				mission
			Hey I'm dancing down the streets
			Got a revolution Got to revolution
			Ain't it amazing all the people I meet
			Got a revolution Got to revolution
			One generation got old
			One generation got soul
			This generation got no destination to hold
			Pick up the cry
			Hey now it's time for you and me . .
			
			Weather Report
			"People ask, what is the nature of the revolution that we talk about.
				Who will it be made by, and for, and what are its goals and strategy?
			. . Thus the loss of China and Cuba and the loss now of Vietnam not
				only encourages other oppressed peoples (such as the blacks) by showing
				what the alternative is and that it can be won, but also costs the
				imperialists billions of dollars which they then have to take out of the
				oppression of these other peoples. . .
			The legitimacy of the State is called into question for the first time
				in at least 30 years, and the anti-authoritarianism which characterizes
				the youth rebellion turns into rejection of the State, a refusal to be
				socialized into American society. . .
			The crisis in imperialism has brought about a breakdown in b bourgeois
				social forms, culture and ideology. The family falls apart, kids leave
				home, women begin to break out of traditional "female" and "mother"
				roles. . ."34
			
			16
			Achmed's Backstory
			
			In 1948, as war clouds darkened the deserts, Abra Maslow was at Petra,
				"Rose-Red City of Biblical Edom35," with an
				archeological team, measuring the girth and length of the columns of
				sandstone carved into the living rock by the Natabeans.
			Abra was the daughter of the brilliant psychiatrist Abraham Maslow, who
				worshiped the motherless girl--some said he set her on a pyramid above
				all the rest of womanhood. Her education was a strange one, based in
				Maslow's reading of the life of John Stuart Mill. Abra read Heraclitus
				in Greek and Lucretius in Latin by age five, and besides her father's
				German and English, she also was versed in pre-Mohammedan Arabic. Not
				content with degrees in Pythagorean geometry and Khwarizmi algebra,36Abra was also a famous hostess and cook. Her salon
				and her parties at the Dakota during the war years attracted Ruth
				Benedict, Margaret Mead and Tallulah Bankhead, uncorking fine vintages
				and feasting on Abra's speciality, an international ratatouille of
				whole-roasted zucchini, Japanese eggplant and spicy Italian sausages
				alla putana37, later copied by Alice Waters for Chez
				Panisse.
			One fateful day in the blazing sun, Abra was stretching around one of
				the colossal stones with a tape measure seeking the Nabateans idols of
				the sun god Dushara, whose symbol was an uncut black stone. (Allat, the
				great mother goddess of Arabia, was his mother and consort.) All over
				Petra she had opened carved niches containing pillars or large separate
				monoliths representing Dushara. She was in front of the Treasury
				[Khazneh] when a troop of Bedouins came thundering up picturesquely on
				their sleek Arabian steeds. Their muskets firing, the Bedouins
				surrounded Abra and sent her native helpers scurrying into the dust.
				She, fearing for her life but resolute, rose and turned to face the
				crowd of swarthy men. The tallest--sensually dark and handsome--
				dismounted and came in her direction, seizing her by the hand and
				wrapping his other arm around her waist. A scream was forced from her
				lips as they were pressed against the firm mouth and bulging chest of
				this man with magnetic dark eyes. In an instant, Abra was swept away, a
				captive of the Sheikh.
			Making from Petra for the Wadi Arabah, the Sheikh's band had a stiff
				climb down, unloading and loading the horses and pack mules where the
				trail between rock cliffs was too narrow to let them pass. There at Wadi
				Musa, where the rock finally opened, these wild knights of the desert
				paused and pitched their tents, while the erotic dancing girls undulated
				rhythmically. As they cooled their palates and ate their dates, the
				Sheikh's men knew they could not be followed, as they were the masters
				of their desert domain.
			An international incident ensued; the British Protectorate was forced
				to divert a key unit of men from Jerusalem to search for Abra, thereby
				leaving the King David Hotel unprotected. But that first night, Abra
				faced her captor alone on the moonlit desert. She was carried into his
				tent and bathed by three maidens who scented her hair with jasmine, then
				draped her in rich silks. She was thrown onto a divan covered in
				priceless rugs, right into the arms of the young Sheikh, now abluted and
				smelling of powerful, sweet musk--although there was also an
				intoxicating aroma of horse and sweat lingering at his thighs.
			Still determined not to collapse in fear, Abra sat up and said in
				archaic Arabic, "Honorable host, please treat this guest with the
				courtesies traditionally vouchsafed to strangers."
			His eyes widening, a smile brightening his sensual lips, the Sheik
				answered her in Oxbridge English, "You will be treated better than if
				you were a mere stranger. Remember how receptive to strangers they were
				at Sodom, which lies buried only a few leagues from here. Now I will
				have a kiss!"
			Abra, feeling it was more strategic not to resist too much, tried to
				turn away, but his exotic honeyed tongue darted between her lips before
				she was prepared. "Ohhh, please," she moaned. "Be gentle."
			The Sheikh emitted a low musical laugh and replied, "I am always gentle
				and always savage. In this case, however, since you are an agent of
				international petroleum prospectors, you do not deserve much gentleness
				in this our desert land." He pulled her roughly toward him and, grasping
				her wrists, extended her body across the soft rugs and lay atop her.
			"I am a scientist and a virtuous woman," Abra cried in Natabean, but
				her cries went unheeded as the moon and its caravan of stars crossed the
				blue desert.
			". . . ."
			Less than a year later, the Sheikh proudly held up Achmed ben
				Maslow-Sheikh, his beautiful son, and named him his heir, commanding all
				the tribes of Bedouins to swear fealty and loyalty to him forever. As
				they swore their oaths, the baby's mother shot her violator, the father
				of her child, through the heart and was consequently set upon and
				butchered by the loyal Bedouins. Achmed, however, grew to manhood,
				(shortening his name to ben Maas), went to Oxford like his father, and
				--hurrying along this story-- became the chief accountant for Phillips
				Petroleum. He married the delicate daughter of a Greek tycoon and they
				had four sons and--the deglet noor of his eye--a daughter, Oedipa.
			Raised in historic Baghdad, the urban center of the most sophisticated
				Islamic country in the world, Oedipa outdistanced her girlfriends, and
				especially her brothers, in all games and in learning. Particularly fond
				of riding and polo, Oedipa was furious when at thirteen she was no
				longer permitted on the team. She grew rebellious, flirted with the
				Baathists but left them quickly, and was soon the leader of the
				transnational smarty set of oil-rich sons and daughters who outraged
				their parents with their sexual license and intellectual probing. Oedipa
				smouldered, knowing she must achieve self-actualization.
			At fifteen, after an incident at the Iraq Desert Country Day School
				where she was nearly violated by a US Army Baptist chaplain, Oedipa ran
				away to Jerusalem and became a dedicated revolutionary, had brief and
				fiery affairs with Edward Said and Leila Khaled, escaped to California,
				and joined the Wymmyn's Fyre Brygade, an anti-imperialist collective in
				Encino. It was from there she helped Tania to run from the bullets, and
				where she began her Transition, taking testosterone and pumping iron,
				surgically molding breasts into hard pecs. By age thirty, he was Achmed,
				an anti-imperialist like his grandfather, a Marxist Muslim, fighting
				global capitalism and sexual oppression around the world. Hated by
				fundamentalists, feared by global capitalists, Achmed worked in
				clandestinity, supporting himself as a sex worker, male or female, as
				the revolutionary situation demanded.
			
			
			
			Petra and Petroleum
			Petra sat at the crossroad of two major ancient routes, the King's
				Highway and the Incense Route. It was these routes which were fought
				over so violently between Solomon and the Edomites. The wealth gained in
				their control was fantastic, as witness the stories told of Solomon's
				Temple, etc. Its first written history is found in the Hebrew Bible; for
				the land about it was Mount Seir of old (now Esh Sera), home of the
				Horites, cave dwellers whose progenitor was Hori, the grandson of Seir
				(Gen.36:20). These Horites are first mentioned at the time of Abraham in
				connection with the subjugation of the land by Chedorlaomer. King
				Amaziah of Judah made war against the children of Seir and took Selah
				(Petra? see argument above), smiting ten thousand. "And other ten
				thousand left alive did the children of Judah carry away captive, and
				brought them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top
				of the rock, that they all were broken in pieces" (2Chron. 25: 12).
				Could this "top of the rock" have been Umm el Biyara? The debate
				continue to rage.
			We know that Crusader King Baldwin I constructed at Petra a castle
				called Selah, the Bible name for Petra (2Ki.14:7). He was following the
				old idea of controlling and taking toll from the caravan routes, money
				being his prime objective in the Crusade. Though Crusaders constructed a
				fort there in the 12th century, they soon withdrew, leaving Petra to the
				local people. The city died out of men's memory, and the nomads used it
				as a hideout, living in the nearby caves, for a thousand years.
			
			17
			Poolside
			"A beautiful morning," says Mr. Sithole to Cyril and Vyvyan, stuffing a
				newspaper behind his back. He calls them over to introduce a young man
				in an International Male pool lounging outfit.
			"Mr Burst and Lord Throbbing, this is Mr. Tilden; he's learning
				bartending and hotel service. Tim, please help these gentlemen get
				comfortable at poolside."
			"Quelle convenance," flutes Cyril.
			"Handsome Timmy," fifes Vyvyan as the three head toward the pool.
			"Have a pleasant day, milords," says the Manager oilily, shoving Timmy
				after them.
			Cyril oboes, "Down at the far end, away from the Casino. It's quieter."
			Baring their leathery skin to the sun, Cyril and Vyvyan settle on
				chaises longues, inviting Tim Tilden to join them. He sits between them
				on a towel and pulls off his shirt, revealing a Hellenic marble chest
				upholstered in white wool.
			"How are you gentlemen enjoying the summer? What brings you to this
				godforsaken shack?" He picks thoughtlessly at a scab on his nipple.
			Vyvyan replies, "Oh, it's too cold down in Namibia where we live. And
				we're always traveling anyway--it's our work. And you? Aren't you
				American?
			"African American," says Tim. "I've lived here since I was twelve years
				old. See, Mrs. Sithole brought me here from Hollywood 'cause I was an
				orphan. My mom was in the movies and my great-great uncle was almost
				President; he won the popular vote in the highly-disputed Tilden-Hayes
				election of 1877. He was defeated in the House by radical
				reconstructionists, which was a good thing. I'm going to study film this
				year."
			"Oh, everyone will be so proud of you, young man,' Vyvyan tells him.
				Just then, a stricken policewoman rushes by carrying a scorched baby
				with a bottle clenched in its mouth.
			"Oh, the poor child!" gushes Cyril. "I must see what I can do." Pulling
				on his shirt, he dashes toward the front of the hotel.
			"Cyril has such a generous heart," Vyvyan sighs lovingly. "God knows
				he's kept me all these years. And I was an orphan too, from the Blitz!"
			"You were? I guess he can afford it."
			Vyvyan gaily retorts, "Oh, we live on nothing--eat like two old birds.
				Cyril got fantastically rich selling gentlemen's jimmys--AIDS, you know.
				But all the money--750 million pounds--went into the Burst-Throbbing
				Foundation for Wayward Boys and Girls. The BTF rescues sex-variant
				children all over the world. . . Well, mostly Africa and the Middle
				East."
			"Another Disney operation?" Tim sneeringly asks.
			"Oh no, dear, we're not Disney at all. We're the anti-Disney. . A
				Phalanx. . . Sunblock?"
			"Uh, thanks. I need it."
			
			As Vyvyan lubricates Tim's alabaster muscles, he exclaims, "What
				entrancing eyes! You have eyes like a Siberian Husky; underneath the red
				they are ice blue."
			"Yeah, I guess it's the albinism."
			Cyril bustles back to say "My stars, Vyv. That baby was nearly
				electrocuted in the Casino. They're searching for its mother now."
			"Oh Cyril, you're very flushed. Sit under the shade. Here, take a
				valium and calm down."
			"Um, can I have one too?" asks Tim as winningly as he can. "Maybe you
				two would like to relax upstairs with a massage? I'd better get out of
				the sun."
			"Speak up, dear boy--Cyril and I are both deaf as posts. . . Ohh, no
				thank you. We're meeting a nice musical artist here for lunch."
			18
			Mobe and the Old Boys: A Whiter Shade of Pale
			"Hello Uncle Vyvyan," said Mobe 68. "You look beautiful in the sun."
			"Oh, you dear boy! Sit here beside me. Ferdie, you sit there next to
				Cyril so he can feel you up. No sense fiddling with Mobie, who still
				thinks he's 'jam38'."
			" Hi, Cyril. How are you, love?" asked Mobe, kissing his uncles on both
				cheeks. "I'm so happy to be here and not in Ubud. We got out just before
				the summer Hindu surfers arrived."
			"What are you reading, Ferdie dear?" Cyril asked him. "Would you boys
				like a drink? Vyvyan, call Achmed over. Mobius, we have wonderful news!
				We just ran into your Aunt Karen!"
			"Ugh! Please don't tell her I'm here yet, Cyril. I can't take another
				session with the photo albums. Ferd, you better go to the desk and leave
				her a message."
			"That's right, love. And we need a few minutes tete a tete with Mobe.
				Be a dear and tell Achmed we'll have a Svack before lunch--the round
				bottle, tell him. And watercress sandwiches for four?"
			As Ferd walked away, Cyril bent nearer his nephew to say, "We have two
				exciting assignments for you! We've been so busy! Caprice, our old
				friend, is the cook here. Her spies have put us in communication with a
				Malian woman who wants to prevent her 11-year old niece from receiving
				FGM."
			"FGM? We've never intervened in FGM. We don't impose our values, Uncle
				Cyril."
			"But in this case we will, dear. The girl has a reputation for being
				too mannish, and her mother and father are dead set on female genital
				mutilation; it is going to be part of an initiation rite, accompanied by
				explicit teaching about the girl's role in her particular Kenyan
				society," Vyvyan shudders. "Apparently, the mother said, 'We are
				circumcised and insist on circumcising our daughters so that there is no
				mixing between male and female... An uncircumcised woman is put to shame
				by her husband, who calls her "you with the clitoris". People say she is
				like a man. Her organ would prick the man...' "
			Cyril adds, "The family is rich, they live in Nairobi, but they are
				said to be in despair over their daughter's 'perverted sex drive.' They
				had decided to forgo the ritual when the girl was eight, but now. . .
				This mutilation procedure will be performed by a qualified doctor in
				hospital under local or general anaesthetic--very humane, they claim.39"
			"What do you want me to do, then?"
			"We have the cleverest plan, dear. You will impersonate a surgeon, fake
				the procedure, and bring the girl and her mother here to Caprice to
				'recuperate.' Then Caprice and her family will go to work convincing the
				mother the girl is better off being herself. Isn't that a scream!"
			"OK, if you want it done, then it's done. Why didn't you want Ferd to
				hear about it? He's cool. And he'll have to make the arrangements."
			"We don't know him as you do, Mobe dear. We trust your judgment. Here
				he is, and here's dear Achmed with the luncheon."
			"I left the message," Ferd reports. "Countess Karen is apparently
				meeting with WTO security people right now, but will be available later.
				What did I miss?"
			"I'll give you the details later, " says Mobe. "Now let's eat. We want
				to hear about assignment two."
			"A queer case, boys," Vyvyan archly says. "In Denmark, there's a
				seventeen-year-old boy who is being forced into a gay marriage. The
				child is gay, but he doesn't want to be married. His lover's parents,
				who are Americans from New Hampstead . . ."
			"New Hampshire . . ."
			"New Hampshire, then," . . Cyril sighs. Who knew it would come to this?
				I miss the old days when we musical types were merely sinful. Now the
				American gay people are so dreary. And liberal parents . . . Oh!"
			"The poor boy," says Vyvyan, gumming his watercress. "Read a little
				from your book, Ferdie. I loved Heraclitus at school. And no, I never
				met him!"
			Ferd reads,
			"It is not good for men to get what they want."B10
			"To be self-controlled is the greatest excellence. And wisdom is
				speaking the truth and acting in knowledge in accordance with nature."
				B112
			The world, the same for all, neither any god nor any man made, but it
				was always and is and will be, fire ever-living." B30
			Marcus Aurelius' Meditations (VI,ii,17.2)quotes: "so Heraclitus, I
				think, says that even those who are asleep are workers and
				fellow-workers in the events of the world."
			"Just like us, Cyril, says Vyvyan lovingly. "After lunch let's take a
				nice nap. Read on, it's so stimulating, Ferd--even in English."
			
			Plato quotes Heraclitus saying . . . "every thing moves and nothing
				rests; you would not step twice into the same river." Cratylus 402A
			"We are and we are not.
			"The path up and the path down are one and the same, constant, ever
				changing.
			Disease makes health
			pleasant and good,
			hunger satiety,
			weariness rest. B114
			"Combination--wholes and not-wholes, concurring differing, concordant
				discordant, from all things one and from one all things." B1040
			
			19
			Merle the Compassionate Bodhisattva
			Merle the Maltese lifts his leg to the Joshua Tree.
			"May this water bring health to all beings."
			In gratitude, the tree leaves rub pathetically. It is very old for a
				transplanted tree,
			struggling to maintain its life in a climate that is too cold and wet,
				then too hot and dry. It is patient in the morning sun. It tells Merle
			"The existence of reciprocal relationships of things implies that each
				tree--like me-- existing in nature makes some contribution to what the
				universe as a whole is, a contribution that cannot be reduced
				completely, perfectly and unconditionally, to the effects of any
				specific set or sets of other things--lie dogs-- with which I--as a
				tree-- am in reciprocal interconnection. And, vice versa, this also
				means evidently that no given thing can have a complete autonomy in its
				mode of being, since its basic characteristics must depend on its
				relationships with other things. The notion of a thing is thus seen to
				be an abstraction, in which it is conceptually separated from its
				infinite background and substructure. Actually, however, a thing does
				not and could not exist apart from the context from which it has thus
				been conceptually abstracted. And therefore the world is not made by
				putting together the various "things" in it, but rather, these things
				are only approximately what we find on analysis in certain contexts and
				under suitable conditions "41
			
			Merle is not merely sentient, he is sapient: he has had many previous
				lives, beginning as a dung beetle in Gandhara, at the monastery where
				Jesus studied Theravada Buddhism. Most recently, a human healer with the
				Carnivale who, offered complete absorption into the infinite, was so
				filled with compassion that he returned to Earth as a dog. Merel's
				entirely legitimate, but unregistered offspring include Laika, the
				beautiful spacedog of Sputnik II, Petrasche (Dog of Flanders
				immortalized in the eponymous Disney film) and Mr. Peabody and his boy
					Sherman.42
			
			
			Not so many years ago, after undergoing an ecstatic epiphany upon
				lapping up water at Lourdes, Merle was baptized by the saintly but
				controversial Cardinal Pirelli. As he progressed through the realms of
				karma, he has worked all his lives to ease suffering. He listens to the
				tree.
			
			Old elm that murmured in our chimney top
			The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
			And into mellow whispering calms would drop
			When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
			And when dark tempests mimic thunder made -
			While darkness came as it would strangle light
			With the black tempest of a winter night
			That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root -
			How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
			Thy strength without - while all within was mute.
			It seasoned comfort to our hearts' desire,
			We felt that kind protection like a friend
			And edged our chairs up closer to the fire,
			Enjoying comfort that was never penned.
			Old favourite tree, thou'st seen time's changes lower,
			Though change till now did never injure thee;
			For time beheld thee as her sacred dower
			And nature claimed thee her domestic tree.
			Storms came and shook thee many a weary hour,
			Yet stedfast to thy home thy roots have been;
			Summers of thirst parched round thy homely bower
			Till earth grew iron - still thy leaves were green.
			The children sought thee in thy summer shade
			And made their playhouse rings of stick and stone;
			The mavis sang and felt himself alone
			While in thy leaves his early nest was made,
			And I did feel his happiness mine own,
			Nought heeding that our friendship was betrayed,
			Friend not inanimate - though stocks and stones
			There are, and many formed of flesh and bones.
			Thou owned a language by which hearts are stirred
			Deeper than by a feeling clothed in word,
			And speakest now what's known of every tongue,
			Language of pity and the force of wrong.
			. . .
			- Such was thy ruin, music-making elm;
			The right of freedom was to injure thine:
			As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm
			In freedom's name the little that is mine.43
			
			
			As he caninely muses about inter-being, he is startled by a policewoman
				running toward the pool and the front, carrying a baby in her arms.
			He says to himself, "I can tell that extinction nears for that child is
				near. I remember the teaching of the Enlightened One in the Kevatta (Kevaddha) Sutta:44
			
			(The Passing Away & Re-appearance of Beings)
			'With his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished,
				free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to
				imperturbability, he directs and inclines it to knowledge of the passing
				away and re-appearance of beings. He sees -- by means of the divine eye,
				purified and surpassing the human -- beings passing away and
				re-appearing, and he discerns how they are inferior and superior,
				beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their
				kamma: 'These beings -- who were endowed with bad conduct of body,
				speech, and mind, who reviled the noble ones, held wrong views and
				undertook actions under the influence of wrong views -- with the
				break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the plane of
				deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. But these
				beings -- who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech, and mind,
				who did not revile the noble ones, who held right views and undertook
				actions under the influence of right views -- with the break-up of the
				body, after death, have re-appeared in the good destinations, in the
				heavenly world.' Thus -- by means of the divine eye, purified and
				surpassing the human -- he sees beings passing away and re-appearing,
				and he discerns how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly,
				fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their kamma. Just as if
				there were a tall building in the central square [of a town], and a man
				with good eyesight standing on top of it were to see people entering a
				house, leaving it, walking along the street, and sitting in the central
				square. The thought would occur to him, 'These people are entering a
				house, leaving it, walking along the streets, and sitting in the central
				square.' In the same way -- with his mind thus concentrated, purified,
				and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady,
				and attained to imperturbability -- the monk directs and inclines it to
				knowledge of the passing away and re-appearance of beings. He sees -- by
				means of the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human -- beings
				passing away and re-appearing, and he discerns how they are inferior and
				superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance
				with their kamma... This, too, is called the miracle of instruction.'"
			Knowing he is needed, Mere follows the nurse.
			
			20 Burn
			Irritated at the disappearance of her Maltese, Countess
				Yousoupoff-Blitzen is perhaps too caustic to Oliver South; she virtually
				slaps his face with a news clipping. "What is this? Are we allowing
				amateurs to burn our assets now? Find these anarchists and eliminate
				them. Read this:"
			Intersex Demonstration Blasts a Message
			PARIS, Sept. 13, 2003 Figaro-Pravda
			
			
			A small band of intersex activists rallied in front of the Disney
				School of Surgical Enhancement and Body Design on Friday, September 13,
				2003 to protest a gender revision surgical procedure scheduled for an
				unidentified infant. 
			The 'Total Urogenital Sinus Surgical Procedure' was to be observed by
				participants of a 'Feminizing Genitoplasty and Total Urogenital
				Mobilization' seminar presented by the hospital. with associated surgery
				by Dr. Dirck Diink of the Finno-Ugric University School of Medicine. 
			Approximately two dozen people picketed the hospital in a peaceful
				effort to draw attention to what they perceive as nonconsensual genital
				mutilation.  Several protestors were intersexed people whose surgery as
				children resulted in assignment to the wrong gender.  Approximately
				twenty minutes before the procedure was to begin, a bomb went off in the
				empty surgical theater.
			The combined bombing and picketing efforts paid off.  Not only did Dr.
				Diink cancel his appearance, but the hospital also invited talks by
				adult survivors of early childhood surgery intended to assign an infant
				to one gender or the other.  Several of the protestors were intersexed
				people whose surgery as children resulted in assignment to the "wrong"
				gender. 
			
			
				
					"This action by queer, transgender and intersex
						activists loudly demonstrates our collective outrage at what is
						occurring in hospitals around the country five times a day to
						non-consenting children We acted to show the lies in the twisting of
						"Sexual Orientation" and "Gender Identity and/or Expression,"
						Medicalization of Anatomy, and the insistence of society to place
						people in the binary sex model, wherein a man is a man and expresses
						masculine characteristics, while a woman is a woman and expresses
						feminine characteristics, and their sexual dichotomy exists for
						procreation. This model goes to the core oppression of the entire
						LGBTIQ community, whether one is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
						Transgender, Intersex, Queer, or Questioning. "
				 unsigned communique
			21Tim and Ana K.
			Poolside talk about orphans has Timmy a little upset. "I shouldn't have
				bragged about my relatives," he thinks. "Nobody cares about who I am
				related to." Tim doesn't know how wrong he is. Cyril and Vyvyan care
				enough to have secretly financed Tim's emancipation from California
				Child and Family Services and brought him to Mrs. Sithole. Their B-T
				Foundation has liberated thousands of young gay, lesbian, transgender,
				intersex kids and created new lives for them. Timmy, a long way from the
				Hollywood Napkin Ring, has luckily forgotten much of his life on the
				Boulevards and the men who were kind to him only to get him in the back
				seat of a car. "The Sitholes are cool ," he is relieved to say almost
				every day. But now he's looking for his new friend, a nice but sleazy
				girl who's visiting her mom here. "She'll be in the Casino still. But
				that baby looked like . . ."
			Tim breaks into a run, beginning to realize something might be really
				wrong. He can't figure out what the baby would be doing running loose,
				getting hurt maybe. Skidding into the bar, he nearly collides with a
				Black-suited man.
			"Hey, you, kid! Stop right there. What are you doing here?
			"I work here, well sometimes. My uncle is the manager."
			"OK, then. " The Black suit changes his voice to a friendlier, much
				friendlier tone. "OK, then. Tell me what you know about a baby. Were you
				here a couple hours ago?" He already knows the kid was behind the bar in
				the late afternoon.
			"Yeah. If it was the same one, there was a baby here. A girl was with
				her, like blonde hair, a little high. Where is she? Did something happen
				to her?"
			"There's no girl here," says Black suit, his hand closing around Tim's
				elbow, "unless you mean those kids over at the video games."
			Tim pulls himself free and runs over to question two longhaired kids
				playing Survival of the Fittest. "Lou. . . Franky . . ou est la fille
				qui etait ici avec le bebe? Pense! Franky, que'est que ce que vu?
			"Ici? Rien. Ne vu pas rien! Laissez que nous juissons le video. Laissez
				nous en paix!"
			"Nothing, they were too zoned out to see anything," Tim tells the man
				in black. "I gotta find her."
			"We've got a lot more to worry about, kid.. By now that baby may be
				dead. It might be a kidnap thing. You look around for this girl if you
				think she knows something. And come report to me before you leave."
			Tim moves erratically around the casino, finding no trace except a used
				Pamper and a Minnie bag. He heads for the bathrooms, waits impatiently
				for a woman to come along to check the Dames. When no one goes in or
				out, he pushes the door open and walks in, bending to look in the
				stalls. There! A pair of jeans pulled down over fancy Pumas. It's her!
			"Oh, god," he sighs. "I just met up with her. She was all 'you're so
				white, cute, let's hook up.' . . Now she's all blue . . . and . . .
				dead. Police! Help!"
			22 Emergency Ward: Burn Trauma: Panopticonvict
			
			From this point of view, Rusche and Kirchheimer { Punishment and Social Structures, 1939, ed.} relate the
				different systems of punishment with the systems of production within
				which they operate: thus, [. . .] the penitentiary…forced labour and the
				prison factory appear with the development of the mercantile economy.
				But the industrial system requires a free market in labour and, in the
				nineteenth century, the role of forced labour in the mechanisms of
				punishment diminishes accordingly and 'corrective' detention takes its
				place. [ ..] Every offense now carries within it, as a legitimate
				suspicion, but also as a right that may be claimed, the hyupothesis of
				insanity, in any case of anomaly.45
			
			
			"Electrocution!" screams the EMT. "Oxygenate her, she has possible
				brain complications."
			In comes the harried ER doctor. "Where's next of kin? We have to deal
				with the burns now, let the brain alone."
			In comes the nurse. "Poor baby! At least she's not a suicide like that
					Korean.46"
			In comes a State official with an alligator purse. "We need to keep
				this baby under surveillance. She may be a crime victim. This child may
				be the victim of parental abuse, and we must interrogate her mother."
			"What makes you think this child even has a mother?" sneers the doctor.
				"I'm disgusted with your system that lets women drop babies like
				laundry."
			"Call the psychiatrist, 47 " says the alligator
				official. "Watch this baby!"
			Novy enters running, demanding to know, "What are you doing to our
				baby? I'm a mother.". Snuffling toward the bed comes Merle, his eye-hair
				standing up to clear his vision.
			Novy punches the only speed-dial number on her cel. "Mona, honey, it's
				me. I've got bad news. You need to come to Mickey's EuroDisney Emergency
				right now. It's the baby." She hangs up to screaming on the other end.
				The phone rings as Novy leans over the baby. "Try, little girl--try to
				live!" she gulps, not crying.
			Mere the Maltese runs barking around the room. " I will have to
				contravene natural processes of death here. This calls for the Atanatiya
					ritual,48a healing ceremony that primarily belongs
				to folk religion; it has become a ceremony purporting to fulfill, at the
				popular level, the socio-religious needs of the simple rural Buddhists.
				. I will have to utilize the primitive but colourful dances, gestures
				and prayers that a refined Buddhism might disdain. In this incarnation I
				am European- (and obedience-) trained; why, I can understand the Texaco
				Metropolitan Opera broadcasts without the obstacle of English
				translations, so my dharma would normally more resemble that of the ch'an."
			"In this crisis," he thinks, "with Mona Lisa and the baby, we can posit
				that the child has need for tovil--exorcism of
				evil influences. The Buddha is the chief of living beings, who include
				the yakkhas and other related non-human beings
				that figure in tovil. Although they have the
				power to make their victims ill in various ways -- such as by
				possession, gaze, etc. -- they have to leave them once propitiatory
				offerings of food, drink, etc., are made to them. Even the mere mention
				of the Buddha's virtues is enough to frighten them. Moreover, the chief
				of the yakkhas, Vessavana (Vesamuni), is one of the four regents of the universe (maharaja) and as such a devoted follower of the
				Buddha. The ordinary yakkhas that trouble human
				beings have to obey his commands. Thus, in all rituals connected with
					tovil, it is in the name of the Buddha and
				Vessavana that the yakkhas are commanded to obey
				the orders of the exorcist. And in the rich folklore that deals with tovil, there are many anecdotes that connect every
				ritual or character with some Buddha of the past or with some Buddhist
				deity."
			Into the room comes Timmy, staggering with the murdered Ana K. in his
				arms. Behind him is MonaLisa, her eyes pleading for surcease of sorrow.
			"Detenez ces femmes--criminelles, Magdalenes, putains-- la," dit le
				oficiel avec le sac de alligateur.
			And coming down the corridor are Oliver South and his black-suited men,
				briefcases at the ready.
			The Atanatiya Ritual
			Merle yips the growing crowd into silence. He knows that first one must
				recite the Metta, Dhajagga, and Ratana Suttas. He does so. "We will
				dispense with the armed guard and getting the patient to offer me a seat
				and go directly to the paritta, the offering of
				flowers and lamps to the dagaba, and the
				recitation by the bhikkhu (me) of a set of benedictory stanzas, called
					(Maha)-mangala-gatha.[24] "
			He summons a full assembly of the deities. Then, he barks out orders to
				the evil spirit to say his name.
			"I am the devil in the details," is heard coming from the blue lips of
				the baby.
			The compassionate Dog tenderly licks the burned face of the baby and
				tells the devil, firmly but respectfully, "the merits of offering
				incense, flowers, alms, etc. are all transferred to you; the mangala-gatha just referred to have been recited in
				order to appease you (pannaharatthaya: as a gift)
				and you should therefore leave the patient in deference to the Sangha
					(bhikkhusangha-garavena)."
			
			This is the dangerous point, as Merle knows well. If the spirit still
				refuses to leave, the deities must be informed of his obstinacy and the
				Atanatiya Paritta will be recited after declaring that as the spirit
				does not obey them, they are carrying out the order of the Buddha.49
			
			Panting in concentration, Merle invokes the second-highest spirit of
				his universe, the reader. "Dear Reader, if the spirit will not leave,
				the baby will be left in a coma. Should the Author let her live, or
				leave her to vegetate?"
			Timmy turns toward the imagined viewers and implores us, utilizing a
				perhaps-inefficacious formula, "please, let her live. Say 'I believe.'
				Clap your hands!"
			A clock is heard ticking, and sands run through an hourglass,
				whispering suspense. The heart monitors ping ominously. Two mothers hold
				each other, shrieking their fear. Sunlight pours bluely through the
				regrettable Chagall windows. South mutters his expectation of a clean
				merciful death for the electrically ravaged child; she is negligible
				collateral, as he assumes she is already damned by the sins of her
				wanton mother. He is after frying bigger fish.
			Meanwhile, what is a devil to do?
			And suddenly, putti appear through the ceiling, holding a laptop, and
				the screen says, "You've got mail." A celestial hand reaches out to
				click the verdict: What, readers, will it be?
			23 Digression on Shame
			"Mommy, I just love Shame."
			Brandon de Wilde in the George Stevens 1953 fillm with Alan Ladd, Jack
				Palance and Jean Arthur
			"I like the gods. I like them very much. I know exactly how they feel.
				Exactly."
			Jack Palance in the Jean-Luc Godard 1963 film Contempt, with Brigitte Bardot, Fritz Lang and Michel Piccoli
			
			George Eliot puts down her pen and sighs. Looking, as I think Virginia
				Woolf said (VW might have been calling the kettle beige), like "a
				sorrowful but brainy horse," she muses,
			The Nineteenth Century Novel is, aside from its aspects in
				verisimilitude--depiction of 'realistic' characters caught in the
				contradictions of ubanising capitalism--an essay in philosophical
				inquiry. Consider my Middlemarch, where
				consciousness itself was examined through the minds of Dorothea,
				Casaubon, Ladislaw, etc. Readers were aware, I trust, that the "stealthy
				convergence of human lots" arose from genetic predisposition, social
				conditions, and ideological (religious) conviction. I just wish I could
				write funny stuff too.
			She writes:
			Dear P___,
			I enjoyed reading your book, 50which provoked many
				thoughts for me. If I can now remember them, I will try to write some
				down.
			
				
					Our brains seem to work through chemical and electrical circuits
						that first register bodily impressions--whether presented from
						outside through the senses or internally from nerves monitoring the
						body or nerves monitoring the thought processes and memory. The mind
						develops as a consciousness that our brain/body is actively involved
						in the process of processing. The mind is somehow tricked into
						believing that it is continuous and identical to itself, despite the
						ocurrence of different sense impressions and different sentient
						responses at each moment of our lives. We seem to want to believe we
						are the same from day to day; hence, the creation of a "self" as a
						vessel of continuity, of identity. Of course this "self" is
						inflected by genetic and cultural factors: a 21st C US gay white
						male self is not just biological, but historical.
				
				
					This "self" comes to dominate our reception of input and processing
						of reactions--feelings and thoughts. There is some speculation that
						because women are subjected to much more biological change on a
						periodic basis, they have less investment in the rigid maintenance
						of a continuous self-identical "self." In any case, most of Western
						history explains things on the basis of continuities, individual or
						social, and the interruptions to continuity.
				
				
					Our "self" tries to hold things together in the midst of ongoing
						chaos by assuming continuities and asserting it can and must
						integrate different responses to similar and even wildly divergent
						processes that happen to the body and the mind. One of the ways it
						asserts this attempted integration is to believe the individual
						thoughts that pass through our minds (scientists concerned with
						thoughts and consciousness say a thought passes through in around 20
						seconds, and that a new one occurs at least as often) are connected
						to each other, although they are not--in fact--connected by anything
						except the assertion of their connectedness.
				
				
					I take from this the conclusion that a desire to integrate
						different impressions, feelings, or impulses into a self is based on
						an illusory belief that it is even possible, and therefore that the
						attempt to integrate is always a failure. That failure results in a
						feeling of inadequacy that is the genetic consequence of the fact
						that our brains are too sophisticated for our own good. An
						individual human feels inadequacy (basic shame) not because he/she
						isn't as good as others, but because no human is capable of
						integrating what is not integrate-able.
				
				
					Nor is any human capable of reconciling autonomy vs doubt of her
						capabilities, love vs hate, like vs dislike, or any other thing we
						see as dichotomous, bifurcated, opposite--because binaries are also
						inadequate to contain the complex variability of situations and lead
						to rigid distinctions about what is inside and what is outside, what
						is good and what is bad, what is functional and what is
						dysfunctional.
				
				
					Human society functions through the confusion of our connections
						and disconnections with others and ourselves, pretending we are
						individual identities and creating power networks that pervade every
						distinction.
				
				
					Sexuality is one of the confusing connections/disconnections that
						is infused with power and powerlessness, and is--like all other
						processes--actually not composed of self and other, in and out, good
						and bad, creative and destructive, because these binaries are
						inadequate but just about as far as our brains can go with the
						delusions of continuity and self-identity.
				
				
					20th-21st C gay men in the US inherit American culture and struggle
						with it, burdened like all other humans, with the delusion that it
						is possible to integrate impossibly divergent feelings, impressions,
						impulses, into a coherent "self." Since we can't, we feel shame.
						Others feel shame too, but our shame is inscribed with the
						dichotomies and hierarchies of masculine power in our own particular
						gay male way, as constructed by the social processes (gender, class,
						race, geographic accident) of the last several centuries.
				
				
					So, why not decide that shame is inevitable, that everyone feels it
						in her/his own body, and that therefore it is not useful to do
						anything with it except ilaugh at it and move on. We ignore the fact
						that we can't fly: we don't feel shame at not being able to overcome
						gravity. We do invent airplanes and banana peel jokes. We also
						invent philosophies, psychologies and religions that help transcend
						the blame and depression that are reactions to the inadequacy of the
						human brain. We even invent anti-depressants, most of which are
						pretty crude at this stage.
				
				
					Wild sex is one of the incommensurable feelings, bodily and social
						processes that sometimes breaks through the rigidities of "self" and
						allows us the relief of a dis-integration, of non-identity. It can't
						last, because our mind/body cannot continue without the assertion of
						identity. Ecstasy means (from Greek) outside the self.
				
				
					But nothing we have invented can overcome the basic problem that we
						can't integrate un-integrate-able differences; we want wild sex and
						we want domestic comfort. They can be made to coexist, but they
						can't be made into one stable thing. The recent history of gay sex,
						through sexual experimentation to the search for transcendence and
						blowing our minds to AIDS to post-AIDS ennui and depression is, I
						think, evidence of our biological and social limitations.
				
				
					Two 20th C gay white American men were talking together. One asked
						the other, "Do you smoke after intercourse?" The other replied, "I
						don't know, I've never looked."
				
				
					The Other is, of course, non-identical, different from me and
						different from itself. We all think poop smells, but each of us
						thinks our own poop actually smells pretty ok. We like its
						familiarity, and hope it is the same every time. We like
						sameness--men particularly like sameness, and they seek to be the
						same all the time. They also like other men because they are the
						same, familiar to the senses. It is possible for a man to imagine
						how another man feels pooping, sweating, running, eating, laughing,
						being hurt, being afraid. Since he seeks to integrate his
						contradictory impulses, he looks to other men for help and for
						models of how to do that.
				
				
					Woman must more clearly notice she is different every minute, and
						markedly different through the month. Man looks to woman to be
						different, and cannot imagine integrating her except by inserting
						himself into her--fearfully entering into something different, with
						different smells and textures, unsure he is safe. Unsure whether he
						is doing the right thing or inflicting harm, he tells himself this
						is the natural thing to do, although he would feel more secure if
						she was familiar like Daddy and not mysterious like Mommy. Male
						supremacy may be just homophobia--fear of same, not fear of
						homos--an misinterpretation of the safety of sameness into a demand
						for difference, an insistence on integration by inserting himself
						into Other, ruling her, it.
				
				
					If this were the case, our shame, the mind's conclusion that the
						biological incapacity of the mind to reconcile contradictory
						thoughts and feelings is to be interpreted as failure and inadequacy
						qua humanness, when in fact each human faces the same incapacity and
						deems her/himself a failure, may be inscribed in our "culture" as
						our desire for the Other to allow us an escape from the shame of
						being unable to do what humans by nature are not really able to
						do--to integrate.
				
			
			
			No blame. Perseverance furthers. The superior man (sic) thinks it's a
				cosmic joke.
			
			Yours truly,
			Mary Ann
			
			P.S. Don't worry about gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/intersex/queer
				marriage. Worry about Gavin Newsom's record on housing and the homeless.
				GW Bush realizes that calling for a Constitutional amendment is only a
				dumbshow: it won't be passed by 37 1/2 states. And the NY Times is
				editorializing (3/8/04) that same-sex (sic) marriage is inevitable.
			
			P.P.S. Bluto, Goofy, Grouchy and Bozo were voiced by the same man,
				Pinto Colvig. What does that say for verisimilitude in the animated
				film, which is the only direct descendant of the late Novel as
				narrative.
			24
			Grand Ballroom: Mlle. DisneyWorld-Adjacent
			Tonight: Competition for the Crown
			As flames licked at every tree in the unexpected heat of late October,
				the Pageant of the World's Most Up-to-Date (DW-A) was staged on
				specially-artificed sheets of ice, with scintillating snowflakes falling
				intermittently to be-dew the faces of the beautiful contestants.
			Mlle. Corporate Flight
			Hails from Canton, Ohio, USA.
			 
			(Much-edited) LA Times
			In the last three years, Stark County, OH, which includes Canton, has
				lost 3,500 factory jobs, more than 10 percent of the total. Two years
				ago in Massillon, just west ofCanton, the lone rubber glove factory in
				the nation shut, moving production to Malaysia and India and throwing
				her father out of work. Last year, Hess Management of Austin,Tex., shut
				the Danner Press printing plant, costing 325 workers their jobs, and 700
				steelworkers at Republic Technologies on the east end of town lost their
				jobs when Republic filed for bankruptcy.
			
			Thomas Briatico, president of Hoover Floorcare, based in North Canton,
				said all of Hoover's major competitors but one were buying their vacuum
				cleaners from Asia and Mexico. That foreign competition, Mr. Briatico
				said, has forced theaverage retail price of cleaners to drop 10 percent
				in two years.
			
			"It's put us at a little bit of a competitive disadvantage," he said.
				"In China, they pay their workers 55 cents an hour, and the easiest
				decision for me would be to go outsource in China. The tough decision is
				to stay here. I'm personally concerned about jobs leaving this country."
			
			"The truth is unless we can do something with these plants, they won't
				be globally competitive," said Mr. Timken, who recently stepped down as
				chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers.
			
			Mr. Timken said his company had been hurt by the strong dollar, China's
				undervalued currency and the harm that imports were causing his
				customers. Foreign competition was so intense, he said, that the price
				of manufacturing goods
			in the United States has fallen 4 percent in the last 10 years as the
				price of other goods has increased 18 percent. That, he said, has forced
				Timken and other manufacturers to increase productivity and reduce jobs.
			Mlle. Gray Market
			A pretty SE Asian miss from Indonesia, her headscarf made of velvet,
				burned into see-through floral patterns.
			
			NYT September 26, 2003 (Partly) by MARK LANDLER
			
			Hang around any schoolyard in Germany or college campus in Indonesia
				and it becomes clear that the recording industry's problems with the
				illegal online distribution of music in the United States pale beside
				the rampant piracy that goes on overseas.
			
			The industry's biggest hurdle may be cultural. As is the case among
				many young people in the United States, swapping files and burning
				tracks on CD's are viewed in most countries as routine, not renegade,
				behavior. After all, the most popular file-sharing software, KaZaA, was
				dreamed up by a Swede and written by three young Estonians.
			
			"I adored Leslie Cheung, but if he made 5 million or 2 million a year
				doesn't matter to me, honestly speaking," said our contestant, referring
				to the late gay Taiwanese pop star whose songs are actively swapped over
				the Internet.
			
			Piracy, of course, affects more than a pop star's paycheck. Sales of
				recorded music have plunged more steeply in several European and Asian
				countries than in the United States because of a combination of file
				sharing, home CD burning and the mass production of knock-off disks. In
				Germany, Europe's largest and hardest-hit market, sales have fallen by a
				third in the last five years. They are projected to decline another 20
				percent this year, compared with a 12 percent first-half decline in the
				United States.
			
			These examples leave out China, where piracy exists on an entirely
				different scale. Nine out of 10 recordings in China are pirated,
				according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry,
				an umbrella group
			for 46 national industry organizations.
			
			File sharing appears to be as cross- cultural as any other type of
				piracy. The amount of swapping in a country generally correlates to the
				number of people who have PC's with high-speed Internet connections.
			
			That case will be no easier to make in Berlin or Bombay than it is in
				Boston. Consider the crowded store hidden between the curry stands and
				photocopying shops at Trisakti University in Jakarta, Indonesia.
			
			A sign outside advertises "Recordings! Your Favorite Songs in Cassette
				& CD Finished in 3-7 days." Inside, Miss GM and other students
				peddle "special" CD's for 12,500 Indonesian rupiah each (about $1.50). A
				legitimate CD bought in Jakarta's business district would cost six times
				that.
			
			For a little extra, customers can name 15 to 19 songs, and the shop
				will burn them on to a CD. Hip-hop and rhythm and blues are the most
				popular requests, and if the shop does not already have the song, no
				problem. Tonight's pageant compeitor's boyfriend ,Ferbie, will
				personally download it from the Internet at his father's office. "The
				customer is king," he said.
			
			Mlle. Illegal Market
			Bella hija de la familia Londoño, de Bogotá, Colombia
			
			NYT September 18, 2003
			By JUAN FORERO (con unos cambios en redaccion)
			
			BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Sept. 17 - The United Nations said today that
				American-financed aerial eradication of Colombia's vast coca fields is
				starting to pay big dividends and released estimates that show the size
				of the crop dropping by 32 percent in the first seven months of the
				year.
			
			Production of coca - the main ingredient in cocaine - is increasing
				slightly in Peru and Bolivia. But the sizable reduction in Colombia's
				crop means that for the first time overall coca production in the Andes
				is dropping at a rapid pace.
			
			The new estimates from the United Nations Drug Control Program show
				that coca fields in Colombia fell to 170,430 acres on July 31 from
				251,940 acres last December. At this rate, the United Nations said,
				Colombia's coca crop will be reduced 50 percent by the end of the year.
			
			The American Congress is debating whether to provide another $700
				million in aid to Colombia on top of $2.5 billion that Washington has
				spent since 2000 to eradicate coca and undercut the financing source for
				Colombia's insurgent groups.
			
			Human rights groups frequently criticize President Álvaro Uribe, uncle
				of tonight's contestant, and some American congressmen have questioned
				the effectiveness of United States aid. The new data, though, are sure
				to encourage supporters of eradication. "Many people who thought this
				couldn't be done in the past are having to rethink their assumptions,"
				John Walters, the White House drug policy chief, said by phone from
				Washington.
			
			Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Uribe in his 13 months in office has
				allowed American planners to use spray planes whenever and wherever they
				have seen fit.
			
			Mr. Londoño, in charge of Colombia's drug policy, also attributed the
				decline in coca production to a fall in cocaine consumption in the
				United States.
			
			According to the Department of Health and Human Services, occasional
				users dropped to three million in 2000 from six million in 1988, with a
				concomitant rise in retail prices.
			
			"The question is whether this will be sustainable," Srta. Londoño said,
				sniffing audibly. 
			
			To be continued . . .
			
			
			25 Grand Ballroom, cont'd.
			As Mlle. NP skates onto the stage, the Countess hisses to Ollie, "Just
				look at this. The little peasant that killed theCancun talks along with
				himself. You've got to prevent these things.. But all the agriculture
				ministers left after that suicide. We need to get at the roots of
				dissent. We can no longer count on AIDS alone to clear out the excess
				farm labor pool already. Read this! It's his daughter!"
			Mlle Native Produce
			Farming Is Korean's Life and He Ends It in Despair
			NYTimes, September 16, 2003 By JAMES BROOKE
			JANGSU, South Korea, Sept. 15 - Before Lee Kyung Hae left for Cancún on
				his final mission to defend South Korean farmers, he climbed a hill
				behind his old apple orchard here. In the quiet solitude of his former
				farm, he cleaned up around his wife's tomb.
			The big news out of Cancún this week was the breakdown in the World
				Trade Organization talks, as the developing nations walked out in
				frustration over farm subsidies. To most of the world, Mr. Lee's act may
				have seemed like a sideshow, the latest face of extreme antiglobalist
				protest,perhaps, just a final desperate measure by a disturbed man. . .
			
			Mlle. African Immigrant (1st or 2nd generation)
			Cyril and Vyvyan flash their passes backstage. They call over Mobe, who
				is to perform tonight. Handing him a black briefcase, Cyril whispers to
				him, "We're leaving tonight, dear. Things are getting too hot for us
				here. We have a flight to Kuala Lumpur. We'll stop over in Dubai; the
				Emir is lending us a palace for a couple nights. God knows he's gotten
				enough diamonds through us."
			"Ugh," says Vyvyan, "don't say through. So messy it was. But you get to
				safety as soon as you are finished here."
			The pair hug their nephew and hand a coded note to Caprice Sithole, who
				nods her understanding. The Sitholes are rooting for Mlle. AI, who came
				from Tanzania with her brothers and sisters. Her home village had been
				an experimental Fair Trade cooperative, just beginning to succeed in
				reversing the Green Revolution fertilizer problem, until her mother, the
				village head, and her aunt, the chief agronomist, died.
			
			Agence France-Presse
			June 30 2003
			The AIDS epidemic is threatening farm output and, in turn, many people
				in Africa who are vulnerable to poverty and hunger, according to United
				Nations officials quoted in this article. "The majority of African
				countries worst-hit by HIV/AIDS are also those heavily reliant on
				agriculture," said one such official.
			
			This article indicates that about 30 million of the 42 million people
				with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa, over half of them in rural
				areas. Last year, 5 million more people were infected with the virus,
				most of them living in low-income, food-deficit countries. In most of
				southern Africa, up to 80% of the population depends on small-scale
				agriculture for food and livelihood. The Joint United Nations Program on
				HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) issued a report on HIV/AIDS in partnership with the UN
				Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which said AIDS had killed 7
				million agricultural workers since 1985 in the 25 worst-hit African
				countries. The epidemic could kill 16 million more by 2020. "
			
			"Where farmers and their families fall sick, they cultivate less land
				and shift to less labour-intensive and less nutritious crops,
				agricultural productivity decreases and hunger and malnutrition are on
				the rise. Many children are losing their parents before learning how to
				farm, to prepare food and to fend for themselves..."
			Mlle. Developed-Nation Aristocracy of Labor Unemployment
			As Factory Jobs Disappear, Workers Have Few Options
			NYT September 13, 2003 By STEVEN GREENHOUSE 2.7 million manufacturing
				jobs lost nationwide in those three years, many of them because of
				imports. Some economists say that even with a boom all those jobs are
				not likely to return.
			
			Factory unemployment has snowballed into a huge social and political
				issue across the Midwest, after manufacturing in the region boomed in
				the 1990's. President Bush gave a speech about manufacturing losses on
				Labor Day in Ohio, and the Democratic presidential candidates are
				pressing the issue. A wide range of figures suggests that the economy is
				likely to surge, but economists predict unemployment will remain almost
				unchanged at nearly 6 percent through the US 2004 presidential election.
			
			Since existence creates consciousness, Mlle campaigns on the slogan,
				"The fabric of this society is falling apart."
			The Winner: Mlle. DisneyWorld Adjacent: Mlle. Prion
			In a fetching cowgirl evening dress, the winner weeps tears of joy and
				triumph, which spread among the luminary crowd.
			
			Mad Cow Disease (BSE) is thought to be caused by a mysterious organic
				formation called a Prion. Prions are infectious agents which (almost
				certainly) do not have a nucleic acid genome. It seems that a protein
				alone is the infectious agent. The infectious agent has been called a
				prion. A prion has been defined as "small proteinaceous infectious
				particles which resist inactivation by procedures that modify nucleic
				acids". The discovery that proteins alone can transmit an infectious
				disease has come as a considerable surprise to the scientific community.
			Prion diseases are often called spongiform encephalopathies because of
				the post mortem appearance of the brain with large vacuoles in the
				cortex and cerebellum. Probably most mammalian species develop these
				diseases. Humans are also susceptible to several prion diseases:
			
			from Alan J. Cann, Principles of Molecular
				Virology, 3rd ed. NY: Academic Press, A Harcourt Scjence and
				Technology Company 1992
			
			26 Leaving the Hotel
			"The start of terror we can hardly bear51"
			The Hotel Real Desert is in an uproar. Mr. Sithole has just been told
				by Achmed that he has an emergency and must leave for the South today.
				Mr. Throbbing and Lord Vyvyan Burst are on the way to Dubai52. All the guests seems to be checking out at once,
				even the long-time resident, Herr Rheinfahrt.
			To make matters worse, the black suits are after Timmy and Marcel, and
				the suite of offices he rents to a casting company is being boxed up and
				vacated before his eyes.
			"Yes, we are relocating," says the harried casting director. "We supply
				the reality extras for big news shows, and we have to get to Haiti
				immediately. Glancing at a printout in his hand, he tells his assistant,
				"Forget about the Iraqi women in black! We need sixty drunken soldiers,
				drooling rum and shooting, two children to eviscerate, dogs to run and
				bark, and a couple hundred sans cullotes to run before the cameras in
				Gonaives at 5:30 tonight. CNN is already contracted for another twenty
				roadside bodies outside Port-au-Prince. Keep up, you fool! Not you, Mr.
				Sithole, I apologize but this is business. Our parent company, World
				Security Operations, insists." Turning away, he shouts into a phone,
				"No, the suicide bombing is off until Thursday. The woman won't go until
				her father gets the cash for his operation."
			
			Between Ourselves53
			
			
			We were talking, about the space
			between our selves,
			and S___ asked you
			as we eased past a car in greasy flames
			on the Autobahn in the dark,
			"Is love the purpose
			of life?"
			He reads German lit.
			And you said, "There is no purpose. It's just an accident."
			You lied, didn't You?
			S___, blue, blue and golden, muscular youth,
			virus teeming through his body, young enough to be your son.
			He says he's never even fallen
			in love, and maybe he should, he could.
			And You said "Life goes on, within you and without you."
			 
			The mystery exits and sharp, dangerous turns,
			a growing taste for transfiguration, obliteration of self.
			S___ loves Mahler, undoubtedly Strauss.
			Heldenleben:
			Oh, to be really strong, to be present.
			And You said we could just fuck calmly, in Sein and Zeit.
			
			27 Escape to Languedoc
			Lemmy and Achmed escape, flying south to Montpellier, an aspiring
				tourist center of 250,000 souls busily aestheticizing their decayed
				industrial and viniculture infrastructure. Rendez-vousing with
				undisclosed colleagues at the Musee Fabre, they are spirited into the
				Jardin des Plantes, where they spend three weeks installed in an exhibit
				of tableaux vivants representing stages of regional history, changing
				costumes every day (homme de tautavel (sic), greques/romaines, alamanii,
				saracens, huguenots, etc.
			
				Lumiere e Son de Histoire de Languedoc54
				
				* 450,000 ans. AC L'homme Tautavel a vécu à côté de Languedoc dans
					Rousillon.
				Des traces de la préhistoire ont été trouvées dans Languedoc
				
					
						32,500-1500 ans AC les restes des bâtiments, des tombeaux et des
							objets
					
				
				façonnés indiquent le développement de la civilisation moderne
				
				
				Interruption of a Different Reality
				All cold
				Gog feel cold
				snow outside
				wind blow all
				dark in cave
				All afraid
				Gog afraid cave bear
				cave protect all
				Gog pray on belly
				pray paint hand
				red hand on cave wall again again again
				hand pretty
				hand powerful
				Gog feel Magog here
				Magog hand pretty
				Magog pretty Gog pretty
				Smell Magog good Magog smell good
				All pray Goddess
				All eat Goddess food
				Paint Goddess dark center
				cave dark Goddess dark pray
				All pray dark
				Fire light warm All
				no cave bear
				pray pray pray pray
				Gog body sing
				Gog sing body All sing body Goddess
				Goddess sing Gog
				All love
				Gog love
				Gog paint
				Gog transported
				to another consciousness through the ecstatic chanting, where the
					sound enables All to transcend their fear and experience their wonder
					at being.
				Gog lack words
				Gog let children tell better
				"As do All adults, Gog envisions our People-those few hundred people
					he is certain are People-in communion, through the Goddess, with all
					the other beings, inhabiting rocks that break in useful shapes, water
					that cleans and cools, animals that give themselves to the people out
					of respect and necessity.
				
				The children speak better as they socialize more securely. The
					children confront the changing world around them:
				"We All are relieved to lay aside our fight-or-flight reflexes and to
					commemorate our births from out of the dark centers of the women, to
					feel the complexity of our love and frustration with each other, to
					stretch our cognition to encompass the thoughts of every entity we
					know."
				
				Gog read newspaper left by Fred:
				Star of One Million Years BC Joins Local Artists in Cave
					Project
				Flintstone Times (The All News That's Fit to
					Print), March 22, 30,004 BC
				Gog and a few dexterous others draw and paint the animals that
					inhabit their psychic universe, here at Grotte d'Chauvet in the future
					France, 30,000 years ago-before Altamira, 15,000 years before Lascaux.
					They fashion tools and fashion pictorial representations with
					perspective, use of pigment for line, shading, juxtaposition of images
					in complicated interactions and with both sympathetic magic and
					delight in the world and their own skill. Raquel Welch, the future
					film star of a film on our distant past, will honor Gog and other All
					artists at a ceremony at Chauvet Cave.
				(Contrary to rumor, Miss Welch will not be joined by Joan Crawford,
					on location nearby filming Son of
					Trog. This film has awakened much controversy
					among local shamans, who denounce it as "blasphemous: . . Only the
					Goddess has sons. This Trog, character should be shown worshiping Joan
					Crawford." Brendan Fraser, "hunk" star of Encino
					Man, is also unavailable.)
				Our community, All, is the winner of the Great Cave Communities award
					for 30,002. Miss Welch will present the award. We are sophisticated
					modern humans, able to learn and teach, conscious of our talents,
					trained by the environment to emphasize the overcoming of
					interpersonal frictions and cooperate. Perhaps there is some genetic
					memory of the bonobos we are related to, those great apes whose
					species, unlike their closest relatives the arboreal chimps, are
					terrestrial enough to relax and enjoy food and sex, without the
					environmental pressure for male hierarchies of domination. (see
					sidebar on production of art)
				
				from: Production and Art, by Leo
					Stoneberg, Ph.D., Oxbone Univ.
				We, the All, speak and make tools beautifully. All do not merely
					"produce," as in productive labor; All are fully modern but have not
					had to distinguish the infrastructural "labor" of acquiring and
					cooking food from the superstructural "leisure" of talking after
					eating or "ritual" of singing. It would be mistaken to see the life of
					All through the (Marxist) Western lens of "the production of the
					material necessity of life," since All linvest our prodigious
					cognitive and emotive skills in everything we do, and have developed
					complex society in which connections to each other and to the rest of
					the world are felt very strongly-more strongly-felt through community
					than through individual sensoria. Living is not easy for All: glaciers
					and the dangers of the hunt narrow our world; but All's painters,
					singers and dancers express and symbolize our cognitions in complex
					somatic, verbal and plastic form. It is important to note that All
					artists are not "representing" reality; as Gog says, "All dance in
					trance. Send Gog to look and mark. Gog paint allow animal to emerge
					from rock live with All."
				
				Gog enjoy primary (limbic) consciousness, like eat, sleep, fuck,
					trance
				Gog experience secondary (cerebral) consciousness as difficult, like
					plan, don't like make anxious or regretful
				In her award presentation, Miss Welch states,
				
				"For All, the cerebral cortex is a (relatively) newly-evolved toolset
					without an owner's manual, and its habit of focusing attention on the
					processes of feeling and cognition has brought in train the dis-ease
					of narrating, stitching transitory sense impressions and feelings into
					coherent but sometimes worrisome speculations on causation. Gog, like
					the others, has a legitimate fear of cave bears and cave tigers. But
					All tend to over-interpret dark as fearful, mentally narrating the
					fear threaded with memories of past attacks and predictions of
					possible future pain that may obscure the core brain state of
					efficiently living in the present.
				This tendency in the darkness of life is brightened by a voluntary
					surrender to the shared ecstasy of safety and worship of fecundity,
					envisioned in the shape of woman-as-Goddess. Since evidence of the
					need for X and Y chromosomes is invisible to them, All experience
					sexual contact without deducing its role in reproduction or imposing
					the standard of reproduction on the sexual activity. All, like the
					bonobos, have sex with same and other-gender partners. All see that
					children are born from the bodies of women. Their groups might be as
					matrifocal as bonobos' as well."
				
				Gog and Magog responsible for children Gag, Kag, Zag , Ig, Lig, Tig,
					Mog, Pog, Wog, Magug, Matug, Mawug: the future of Allkind.
				
				28 But Deep in Holiness
				
				To: The Story Continues . . .
				From: [email protected]
				
				O4-11-29,004 BC
				
				Dear TSC,
				Your description of Gog and Magog was noted here. Some of the views
					(fictionalized, I assume, by the author) were inaccurate. Please see
					the following actual quotations from individuals in the Chauvet Cave:
				"My body moves to the singing and drumming, the bone flutes, the holy
					waters shared, the bodies all around me in the resonating chamber of
					the cave." M, 44
				
				"I come to a mental/bodily state where I embrace all of us as one,
					where our people feel special and right, where I and each one of us is
					full of light and power." F, 32
				
				"Jagged crackles of flashes around our heads, our insides chanting
					audibly right out through our skins" F, 19
				
				"A mute non-explosion when an aperture dilates in the cave wall,
					admitting us to the other part of the world, the part where all is
					alive, all we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, lift, set down, pound or
					caress" M, 17
				
				"Our dead live with us in here, happily" F, 51
				
				"All we remember and all we forgot is here before us, the deer and
					other meat, the bear and tiger to whom we are meat, the plants and
					water and rock look at us with recognition, welcome us, dotted lines
					of light, of power shoot from everything into me, from me into
					everything" M, 28
				
				"Power of light
				Power of sound
				Powers of beings revealing their being to our eyes and ears
				I am not afraid of this power and the beings are not afraid of me"
					(gender uncertain), 30
				
				"I can be in the darkness with light sweating out of my body,
					droplets hiss white circles on the cave floor as I turn, as I turn
					under the giant rhinos the horses rumble in the stone" F, 30
				
				"Then absolute stillness, fires brighten, the world disappears into
					light" M, 29
				
				
				The above are thoughts notated by myself, Trzz, an ethnobiologist
					from the region of Altair 4 (Krell people). I have spent 10,000
					revolutions of Earth around its star watching these homo sapiens sapiens, I, Trzz herself, am immaterial, which
					enables me/her to eavesdrop on spoken and unspoken language, taking on
					such forms as lichens on cave walls, cave bear assailants on the
					attack, earwax of old people exchanging formulas to ward off
					decrepitude-whatever form necessary to record the descriptions the
					humans generate as they experience their ritual life.
				
				I, Trzz, believe that the humans she/I observe seek two categories of
					holiness.
				One is the state or process of transcendence, knowing the ultimate,
					stepping out of self, through pain, ecstasy, whatever, into a feeling
					of unity, wholeness, of uniting with higher levels of being. These
					modes of transcendence are more or less known and knowable, and can be
					correlated with the levels of brain/mind consciousness
				The other category is the recognition and embrace of Immanence,
					beyond epistemology, not a category of knowing, but one derived from
					the logic of inner and outer, self and other.
				
				I, Trzz note, "I reject the possible correlation of these two
					categories with the sexual division of labor among humans and
					ultimately with gender stereotyping. By the time of the High
					Paleolithic or Neolithic cultures of these caves, societies had
					evolved far beyond the basic divisions of child rearing and other
					tasks. I have witnessed the fact that women provide adequately for
					themselves and their children, and share the surplus, through food
					gathering and hunting of small, nearby animals.
				Given the consequent fact (as I have observed here in 30,000 BC) that
					social structures rather than necessity selected for hunting, I
					conclude that men developed hunting as a supplement, as something
					helpful but not usually necessary, something to do to exercise their
					brains and to take a more active role. Cooperation, and language, had
					already been established through experience of gathering, sharing and
					maintaining food and the health of mother-child groupings. All of
					these activities could be performed with the brain of a Neanderthal,
					as Trzz has observed among the Neanderthal groups who lived nearby the
					sites of the more sapient cave users.
				
				To: Trzz
				From: David Lewis-Williams ([email protected])
				04-12-04
				Dear Trzz,
				I have seen your comments on this matter. Consider the following
					propositions:
				1.The opening to immanent holiness in existence could be related to
					the evolution of the cerebral cortex and therefore to an unknowable
					knowing performed by the complex bundling of neural pathways but
					unavailable to consciousness.
				2. The wonder felt at the "thusness" of everything might have its
					holy origin in the processes the brain uses to monitor its own active
					consciousness without transmitting them to the conscious mind.
				
				To: All Recipients
				From: Arnold Schopenhauer ([email protected])
				04-11-1886
				"Life is a business whose returns are far from covering the cost. Let
					us merely look at it; this world of constantly needy creatures who
					continue for a time merely by devouring one another, pass their
					existence in anxiety and want, and often endure terrible affliction,
					until they fall at last into the arms of death."
				
				"If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, men would either
					die of boredom or kill themselves. . . If children were brought into
					the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race
					continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with
					the coming generation as to spare it the borden of existence?"
				from "On the Sufferings of the World," in Complete
						Essays of Schopenhauer.
				
				
				In the world outside this fiction, the Author remembers a sacred
					statement tattooed on the arm of Cory Roberts-Auli (d. 1994?) , in
					Sanskrit, probably of Hindu origin:
				"Oh, beautiful one, do not withhold from me that which makes you:
					blood, worms, germs, flesh, phlegm, foul-smelling excretions, urine,
					sperm, feces and bone and everything that makes you what you are and
					will eventually turn to dust."
				
				While reading the above, Umberto Eco calls Ferd Eggan.
				"Hello, Ferd Eggan? Umberto Eco here. Fine, fine. How are the balls?
					Let's repeat the dialogue of my characters in Foucault's Pendulum (1988). I will be Lia, you be Casaubon
					(and yes, I did name him after Middlemarch.)
				C(FE):"The one true answer?"
				L(UE)"Of course. That there's nothing to understand. Synarchy is
					God."
				C: "God?"
				L: "Yes. Mankind can't endure the thought that the world was born by
					chance, by mistake, just because four brainless atoms bumped into one
					another on a slippery highway. So a cosmic plot has to be found-God,
					angels, devils. Synarchy performs the same function on a lesser
					scale."
				C: "Then I should have told him that people put bombs on trains
					because they're looking for God?"
				L:" Why not?"
				. . .
				FE: But Umberto Eco, be careful. Foucault's
						Pendulum, (1988) will be castigated for calling on searchers
					for God to put bombs on trains.
				UE: Impossible! That's like saying the past creates the present, when
					everybody knows it's the other way around! And anyway, God??
					Puh-leeze!
				29 Return to Reality 2004
				Achmed and Lenny are hurtled back to the Museum tableaux.
				
					
						600-50 ans AC établissement des colonies grecques
					
					
						560 ans AC Établissement des règlements phéniciens
					
					
						50 ans AC Commencement du métier romain
					
					
						300 - 500 AC invasion par Alamans, vandales et Visigoths
					
					
						476 Effondrement de l'empire romain
					
					
						700 AD par les saracens
					
					
						865 AD Formation de la Catalogne
					
					
						900 -1300 AD Guerre intermittente ayant pour résultat des
							changements de règle.
					
				
				Élimination du Cathares
				At this point Lemmy refuses, out of historical solidarity, to
					impersonate bloody corpses of his favorite heretics. He spends his
					time drunk on excellent local wines, fantasizing a very fulfilling
					populist Catharism.
				Lemmy imagines, but Siegfried and Joseph are on the road to Cologne,
					once the center of heretical antinomianism:
				"How marvelous!" sighs Herr Rheinfahrt, transported by a medieval
					woodcut of the cultus of Swabian Ries. "These itinerant beghards (M)
					and beguines (F) were 'immoral55.' Imagine being
					accused of gorging on rich foods and guzzling fine wines in the houses
					of the rich. What a life, and very subversive, walking from town to
					town , spreading the word that the poor are not just future inheritors
					of the Kingdom of Heaven, but they can be in it right now! Tramping
					around, not worrying about how slow walking is compared to the bus or
					a car."
				"I'd like that," says Joseph. "And let's throw in a cult of daily
					bathing-as-rebaptism, to keep the lice at bay and everyone smelling
					better-all for greater imitation of the human/divine body of Christ.
					And, of course, purity of soul would put them all beyond petty
					medieval morality. Since the Kingdom of God can be lived in the
					present, there is no need for reproduction, either. Free love!"
				"Better yet, they indulge their urges in homosexual acts."
				Around a campfire in the Rhineland, your friends around you. Somebody
					has come into camp with a stringed instrument and is singing about
					Divine Love in Provencal. You put your arms around the one you love
					divinely. Your hands stray beneath the robe to the chest of your
					partner.
				You. I stroke your hair, your beard, your manly chest. Your scent is
					strong with today's sweat and the rosemary we walked through all
					afternoon. A kiss as your strong neck bends back to take my mouth, the
					sliding of your tongue and the savory taste of meat and rare pepper.
					Your eyes . . .
				Your eyes. I first wanted you because of your brook-blue eyes under
					black lashes, black brows, my Siberian husky man. You penetrate me
					with your gaze, my body shivers even here next to the fire, as your
					icicle eyes become your rampant sex in me . . .
				Siegfried sniffles as his eyes refocus on the Autobahn. "Oh, Joseph,
					to walk the mountains with the wandervogels
					again. We had such good times, until the whole thing turned Nazi."
				Joseph answers, in calm compassion, "Herr S., your memory is a
					treasure-time you can revisit. Enjoy it for what it is, without regret
					if you can."
				"Ja, mein schwartz Buddha, I love you, but sometimes that advice
					seems a little hard to take. I am also impressed by the ideology, the
					Christology of those crazy 'Free Spirits.' Back in 1400, barely
					escaped from the Black Death, in a severely depopulated Europe, they
					called themselves 'poor good youths' and 'good daughters.' They
					rejected the sacramental system without worrying about
					excommunication. They said 'I am a poor boy or girl' instead of 'I am
					a poor man or woman' to emphasize their humility (?) and spoke
					impersonally: 'it is said to you' instead of 'I say to you.' They all
					were 'followers (and imitators) of Christ and the Apostles,' which was
					a way of indicating they disdained Church hierarchies and followed
					their own collective mystical inspiration."
				Meanwhile, Lemmy and Oedipa are nearing the end of their sojourn in
					Montpellier.
				
					
						1500 après une longue période de guerre et famine que les
							Français établissent control de la region
					
					
						1559 Les guerres catholiques protestantes ont fini par Edict de
							Nantes accordant la liberté de culte
					
					
						1666 Le canal du Midi a démarré
					
					
						1875 Le phylloxera détruit toutes les vignes
					
					
						1962 Rapatriement des colons algériens à Languedoc
					
				
				
				"Speaking of heretical views, here's one," says Achmed. "Remember the
					Schopenhauer line about how anyone who cares about people would think
					to spare future generations of the pain of living. Let's start a
					movement for negative population growth among affluent Westerners.
					Let's pledge not to have children and instead to leave some room and
					some oxygen for others. "
				Lemmy replies, "I hear the latest trend is for wealthy gay men to
					have babies with surrogate mothers, and then hire nannies to take care
					of them. Why don't they just get a dog!"
				"Maybe the most useful would be mass suicide in the First World, for
					ecological betterment."
				30 Weekee Watchee: Save Sirenia
				
				Luckily for Lemmy and Achmed, Ollie South pursues leads indicating
					that some mysterious activity is planned for Cologne, or maybe Aachen.
					Taking advantage of the red herrings, A & L, boldly don the
					almost ostentatiously plain, rigorously but gorgeously tailored,
					soutanes of Old Catholic priests, carrying volumes of Lefebvre in
					Latin, and peregrinate by train to Rome. Surely in the Holy City, they
					joke Thomistically, schismatics will not be subject to an attack that
					might embarrass a Pontiff who, in his dotage, leans increasingly
					toward Tridentianism and Mariolatry.
				Their luck runs sour when they are spotted by agents of the
					Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the bus terminal in the
					Piazza del Risorgimento. They run pell mell into a café down the
					street from the Post Office on Via delle Grazie. Under the gaze of the
					Swiss Guards across the street, Lemmy and Achmed are hustled into the
					WC and put to the question.
				"We know who you are: you are atheist revolutionaries. You, Caution,
					are a Jew, and Achmed, you are not even a man. Why are you playing in
					Church doctrine," queries the sub-assistant inquisitor.
				"We throw ourselves on your mercy," Lemmy pleads. Just when their
					persecutors are about to call over a carabinero, Achmed makes a secret
					sign that causes the priestly crew to relent. He points to their
					crotches and mimes fellatio. After a period of speechless
					contemplation in the Spanish manner, a
					rodillas, L and A are absolved. Their robes are confiscated,
					exchanged for long-sleeved t-shirts of the Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club
					("Putting the Smackdown on Heresy since 1981") "Ever since the Holy
					Father started watching Gibson's Passion," an African priest named
					Thleeanouhee begins. . .
				"Every chance he gets," interrupts a young catechumen.
				"Ever since," repeats the father with asperity, straightening his
					genuinely orthodox robe, " non-canonical enthusiasm for Our Lord's
					suffering is chancy. Positions that were assumed, and enjoyed, intra
					muros-traditionally taken as compensation for irregularities that
					should be curtained away from stool pigeoning to the secular
					government-are no longer sufficient to prophylax against ex cathedra
					bans.
				"As far as the homosexual-ecclesiastical cabal is concerned, we
					encourage your efforts to overthrow any number of non-Christian
					(non-Catholic) governments; they're only temporal powers."
				"Keep in mind, Texas fundamentalism is not Catholic in our view,"
					asserts one of the more chatty priests."
				"But we can't just let you walk around pretending to be piously in
					error."
				Sped under a Vatican escort to DaVinci, our heroes are dumped
					unceremoniously at curbside, but only after confessing that-if they
					were Catholic-they would accept Mary as an entirely human-although
					stupendously blessed-mediator, the holy quickening of her womb not to
					be taken as conferring any ultra-human status upon her.
				After a round of cellular calls, Lemmy and Achmed shake the dust of
					Rome, off on assignment in a private jet to Embry-Riddle Aeronautics
					University, the notorious flying school in northern Florida where the
					9-11 terrorists learned to fly but not to land. From there they are
					driven to WeekeeWatchee, the tourist center with the famous Mermaids,
					now a front for Sirenia, a pagan cult bent on repopulating the
					Everglades with manatees.
				Achmed recusitates his female performance for the sake of
					revolutionary resistance to Sirenian crypto-fascism. He works three
					shows daily as an underwater dancer-diver, breathing through a tube,
					titted and assed as a mermaid. Through a secret channel, he is able to
					swim near the manatees at Blue Springs State; as many as 80 to 100
					spend the winter in the warm waters. The river at the park has a
					fenced off area where manatees who have been nursed back from poor
					health are kept. They would be unable to survive if they were free, a
					view denied by the Sirenia group. Lemmy briefly works as a tour guide,
					handing out maps and brochures.
				Manatee Info for Kids <savethemanatees.org>
				Manatees have one type of teeth - molars. They are the type used for
					grinding and work well for the foods the manatees eat. The teeth in
					front wear down as the manatee gets older. But, new teeth form in the
					back of the jaw, moving forward to replace them. That tooth movement
					is called the "marching molars".
				Manatees are plant eaters. They feed on all sorts of sea plants. An
					average manatee may eat 100-150 pounds of food each day. They swallow
					sea squids or mollusks that may be attached to the seagrasses they
					eat. Also, sand is often mixed with the food they eat. The gritty sand
					wears down the teeth.
				Brain, eyes, ears, whiskers are some of the body parts that help the
					manatee sense the world. The manatee ear bones are large and their
					hearing is believed to be good. They make sounds under water to "talk"
					to each other. The sounds are like chirps, whistles, or squeaks. Most
					of the sounds they make are too low a frequency for humans to hear.
					Their eyes are small but manatees have fairly good vision. They can
					tell differences between sizes of objects and different colors and
					patterns. The manatee snout is covered with whiskers. They are sense
					organs, but their purpose is still not clear.
				It is believed that manatees are smart.
				
				To be continued . . .
				31 Sirenia, cont'd.
				
				
				Their brain is very large and has a lot of gray matter. The gray
					matter is where thinking occurs. Manatees can learn tricks. Breathing:
					Although a manatee can stay under water for up to 20 minutes, it must
					come up to the surface to breathe air. When the manatee reaches the
					surface, you can hear the air blown out of the mouth with a big burst
					of air. Poof. Then you can hear the fresh air being sucked in.
				Manatees may live up to 60 years of age or more. The oldest manatee
					now living is about 50 years old. Manatees have no natural enemies.
					Sharks and alligators do not usually hunt them. Most premature deaths
					occur from cold weather and disease. Fast-moving boats usually kill
					several manatees every year.
				Fossils of manatees found in Florida's springs have been estimated to
					be about 45 million years old. Fossils found in other parts of the
					world may be as old as 60 million years. The modern manatees evolved
					from four-footed land mammals. Their closest living relative is the
					elephant. (For extra credit see footnote 1.)
				
				Sirenia is a cult with worldwide connections. Descended from certain
					coastal Israelite and Canaanite groups that considered Jonah the link
					between God and man, the Sirenians ultimate goal is to revert humans
					to aquatic mammals. Popiel Jonah Melville XXIII, their current
					AnteDiluvian (water-bearer of the prophetic seal), has initated a new
					phase of the Great Work in Manistique, Michigan, where an indoor
					EvergladeLand scientific center and tourist attraction is being built.
					In an upcoming episode, readers will gasp at the scope of their
					operations.
				Cleverly averting close physical examination, Achmed successfully
					begins to insinuate himself into the Sirenia inner circles. The
					mermaids are grateful that an obviously well-trained athlete listens
					to their aspirations and doubts with encouraging tenderness and
					penetration. They are also eager to help her progress in her
					transition to aqualife. After proving herself as a loyal novice with
					impressive lungs, she is sent to Manistique.
				Lemmy, under some suspicion after he was seen cruising on weekends
					around the glory hole booths at XTC Video, in Daytona Beach, is made
					part of a delegation to Kuala Lumpur to facilitate the smuggling of a
					dugong to a dentist's waiting room in Marin Co.
				While they are en route, we check in on Cyril and Vyvyan. Cy is
					supine on the floor of the Jebel Ali Free Zone mall, having fainted
					while arguing with Vyv all the way from Dubai Airport.
				"Cyril," screams Vyvyan, wake up! Oh, will someone please bring some
					water!"
				The mall security quickly bring a portable infibulator, oxygen and
					water, and Cyril swims slowly back to the light in this desert oasis.
				"Ohhh," he moans, as he recognizes Vyv. "My dear, I was in a dark
					grotto, like Capri, and everything smelled so astringently sea clean."
					Cy and Vyv had been arguing about Cyril's obsession that others think
					he smells bad. After an 11-hour flight from Paris, his rumpled mind
					confused the oliferous perspiration of bodies in the Airport and Jebel
					Ali with a morbid preoccupation with his own age-specific
					putrefaction.
				"Ever since Hard Day's Night Cyril has been washing, douching and
					perfuming like Lady Macbeth," dithers Vyvyan to the fetching but
					uncomprehending young guard who kneels with him at Cyril's side. "He's
					bonkers about being a clean old man."
				On the flight Cyril was seated next to a stellar American backpacker,
					very blue-eyed and ruddy. He inhaled the delicious acrid fragrances of
					the boy's armpits and crotch, with puissant bottom notes of of pee and
					arse, and fretted about the leaks of gas he himself was detonating on
					what he hoped was an unsuspecting planeload. Elaborately moving his
					tongue in his long drowse, he fell into the reverie mentioned earlier
					as his brain cells clicked on sweet scents of seawrack.
				
				
				Coming Soon: Protocols of the Order Sirenia,
				As transmitted through the Wandering Aramean from Petra
					to Joppa
				to Tarshish to Ninevah to All True Believers
				The Great Work of God to Restore the Divine Order
				The Book of Jonah
				Moby Dick
				
				1 Manatees, Dugong, and Sea Cow
				This order of aquatic mammals contains two Recent families: Dugongidae for the genera Dugong (dugong, one species) and Hydrodamalis (Steller's sea cow, one species,
					extinct); and Trichechidae for the single genus Trichechus (manatees, three species). The dugong inhabits
					coastal regions in the tropical parts of the Old World, but some
					individuals go into the fresh water of estuaries and up rivers.
					Steller's sea cow occurred in the Bering Sea, being the only recent
					member of this order adapted to cold waters. Manatees live along the
					coast and in coastal rivers in the southeastern United States, Central
					America, the West Indies, northern South America, and western Africa.
				
				Sirenians are solitary, travel in pairs, or associate in groups of
					three to about six individuals. Generally slow and inoffensive, they
					spend all their life in the water. They are vegetarians and feed on
					various water plants. They are the only mammals that have evolved to
					exploit plant life in the sea margin (Anderson 1979). The ordinal name Sirenia is related to the
					supposed mermaidlike nursing of dugongs (thought to be the origin of
					the myths of the sirens) and manatees. The only reliable observations
					of nursing in manatees, however, have revealed that the young suckle
					while the mother is underwater in a horizontal position, belly
					downward. P. K. Anderson (1984a) reported that suckling in the dugong is
					somewhat similar but that the calf usually is in an inverted position.
				
				The Sirenia often are classified together with the Proboscidea and
					Hyracoidea in the mammalian superorder Paenungulata. The geological
					range of the order Sirenia is early Eocene to Recent. The earliest
					fossils are from Hungary and India. By the middle Eocene the order was
					present in southeastern North America, the West Indies, southern
					Europe, northern and eastern Africa, and south-central Asia, and three
					distinct families--the Dugongidae, Prorastomidae, and
					Protosirenidae--had evolved (Dawson and
						Krishtalka 1984; Domning, Morgan, and
					Ray 1982). These aquatic mammals were apparently more abundant
					from the Oligocene to the Pliocene than they are now. Their
					comparative scarcity at the present time probably results from
					climatic changes in the Pliocene and Pleistocene and, more recently,
					exploitation by humans for food, hides, and oil. The number of
					individual sirenians remaining in the world, perhaps 60,000, is far
					smaller than that of any other mammalian order.
				 
				Copyright © 1997 The Johns Hopkins University Press
				
				32 The Baby Lives
				Under orders from Bikkhu Merle, the Devil in the Details rips through
					the Baby's chest and screeches away in brimstone and thunder to the
					Devil Realm. Imagine the picture:56 Timmy is shown
					facing the viewer, still holding the murdered Ana K. in his arms,
					imploring. MonaLisa57 leans over The Baby from the
					right of the bed, her hand on her daughter's little forehead, while
					Novy in the foreground stares aghast at Ana K's stiff body, almost
					falling out of the frame bottom right. Merle is in the foreground to
					the left, bathed in Caravaggiesque off-white light. The incredulous
					Doctor, Nurse and Alligator Purse, in a pictorial triangle middle
					ground left, stare dumbfounded, one at The Baby, one at Merle, and the
					third, the Doctor, gazes openmouthed directly into the eyes of the
					viewer/reader. South and his men have left for the North.
				Voice-over, the reader is asked again, "Should the Author let her
					live, or leave her to vegetate?"
				The putti appearing through the ceiling double-click on Mail.
				
				From: Readers of the World (row.univ.net)
				To: Author [email protected]
				
				Date: 5/10/04 5:48:17 PM
				Subject: Let Baby Live
				
				We, the readers of the world, despite ignoring repeated calls for
					comment, can now notify you that we have decided you should let The
					Baby live. Please inform us of any outcome, and we may deign to
					comment anew.
				
				"Now we'll see some action," hopes Novy.
				Merle gradually fades from the picture as the AP official moves
					toward him.
				The Doctor, alert now to his patient, exclaims, "Sacre bleu! The
					Baby, whom we will now call Little Nell, lives! But her body is nearly
					75% destroyed by the electrical shock. I fear only her brain is
					functioning, and I cannot be certain all of that is intact."
				"Thank the Goddess of Compassion Quan Yin, she didn't have time to
					develop a pesky "self," comments Merle's fading bark.
				Novy grasps the laptop from the putti and begins an immediate search
					for a specialist. With MonaLisa at her side, she finally locates the
					most prominent specialist in body transplants. A graduate of Grenada
					Medical University, Dr. Sieglinde Rheinfahrt-Merdeka, has successfully
					performed five cutting-edge body transplants at the Hospital de Muchas
					Mercedes, Cd. de la Plata, Argentina, a charitable project of
					something called the Burst-Throbbing Foundation.
				
				33 Terror in Cologne
				Lemmy imagines, but Siegfried and Joseph are on the road to Cologne,
					once the center of heretical antinomianism:
				"How marvelous!" sighs Herr Rheinfahrt, transported by a medieval
					woodcut of the cultus of Swabian Ries. "These itinerant beghards (M)
					and beguines (F) were 'immoral58.' Imagine being
					accused of gorging on rich foods and guzzling fine wines in the houses
					of the rich. What a life, and very subversive, walking from town to
					town , spreading the word that the poor are not just future inheritors
					of the Kingdom of Heaven, but they can be in it right now! Tramping
					around, not worrying about how slow walking is compared to the bus or
					a car."
				"I'd like that," says Joseph. "And let's throw in a cult of daily
					bathing-as-rebaptism, to keep the lice at bay and everyone smelling
					better-all for greater imitation of the human/divine body of Christ.
					And, of course, purity of soul would put them all beyond petty
					medieval morality. Since the Kingdom of God can be lived in the
					present, there is no need for reproduction, either. Free love!"
				"Better yet, they indulge their urges in homosexual acts."
				Around a campfire in the Rhineland, your friends around you. Somebody
					has come into camp with a stringed instrument and is singing about
					Divine Love in Provencal. You put your arms around the one you love
					divinely. Your hands stray beneath the robe to the chest of your
					partner.
				You. I stroke your hair, your beard, your manly chest. Your scent is
					strong with today's sweat and the rosemary we walked through all
					afternoon. A kiss as your strong neck bends back to take my mouth, the
					sliding of your tongue and the savory taste of meat and rare pepper.
					Your eyes . . .
				Your eyes. I first wanted you because of your brook-blue eyes under
					black lashes, black brows, my Siberian husky man. You penetrate me
					with your gaze, my body shivers even here next to the fire, as your
					icicle eyes become your rampant sex in me . . .
				Siegfried sniffles as his eyes refocus on the Autobahn. "Oh, Joseph,
					to walk the mountains with the wandervogels
					again. We had such good times, until the whole thing turned Nazi."
				Joseph answers, in calm compassion, "Herr S., your memory is a
					treasure-time you can revisit. Enjoy it for what it is, without regret
					if you can."
				"Ja, mein schwartz Buddha, I love you, but sometimes that advice
					seems a little hard to take. I am also impressed by the ideology, the
					Christology of those crazy 'Free Spirits.' Back in 1400, barely
					escaped from the Black Death, in a severely depopulated Europe, they
					called themselves 'poor good youths' and 'good daughters.' They
					rejected the sacramental system without worrying about
					excommunication. They said 'I am a poor boy or girl' instead of 'I am
					a poor man or woman' to emphasize their humility (?) and spoke
					impersonally: 'it is said to you' instead of 'I say to you.' They all
					were 'followers (and imitators) of Christ and the Apostles,' which was
					a way of indicating they disdained Church hierarchies and followed
					their own collective mystical inspiration."
				Missive from Merms
				04/18/04
				
				Mr. Egg (again): Your Latin is vulgar, to say the least.  Like
					something you learned on your honeymoon in your hometown.  By changing
					the subject from Sea Cows to vegetative infants, you missed diving
					beneath the surface of Sirenia's Secret Plan: "Manatee Manors" -- the
					Del Webb Everglade Retirement Community.   We, the" Wikka Daughters of
					the Working Merms of Wicky Wachee Springs(ret)" corrupted your mailing
					list as a warning: Stay out of shallow waters
						before you are grounded.
					Our Merm-mothers aren't retired, they are
						permanently beached, thanks to "Sirenia" - a MAN- atee cult who
					took over the Springs in the name of ecology,( actually "Human
					Resources" ax- men responsible for draining the Springs and the
					Everglades)..."Sirenia" is a land-use  subsidiary of Dell Webb
					Developments.  And it gets worse.  More vulgar than even your Latin
					could express. A landfill of human teeth is replacing 2/3 of Florida.
					  The delegation to Kuala Lupur to facilitate the
						smuggling of a dugong to a dentist's waiting room in Sausalito is
						our symbolic clue:  The "Great Work" in Manistique, Michigan is
						not just a "Marching Molars Study"
					sponsored by the Fluoride Foundation of Florida, to implement dental
					implant research --- it is a front for stem- cell research to
					genetically combine MANatee genes with those of "land sharks"-- to
					clone aquatic (cold blooded) humans who will control global
					stock-markets with their sonar snout-symphonies (Disguised as dreamy
					melodies of whale songs.)  If "Sirenia Systems, Inc." succeeds,
					underwater investments controlled by sound-waves sent as signals by
					"Homeland Security Pool and Spa Services, Inc", installed in thousands
					of Florida's "active adult communities",  will drown out everything
					else.  Especially poor old people.  The surplus seniors around the
					world.  The drowning world.   Meanwhile, planned communities
					burgeoning with groups of younger retirees will occupy Sirenia's
					 upscale Florida residential enclaves,  driving out future elders, who
					will be expected to work happily and harder at meeting raised
					expectations--- Old age is predicted to have more positive
					attributions-- such as maturity, competence, sophistication,
					confidence, self-reliance and power.  Above all:  HEALTH and WEALTH.  
					Surfing the Wave of Retirement:  Waving or Drowning? Growing old
					successfully will be the expected norm.  Without vigorous investments
					using Social Security to "grow" the Market, by
						2007, Americans will ALL have inadequate financial resources.
					Leisure and Medical Industries, Travel, Surgery and Adult Learning are
					a few of the Market potentials directly affected.  The Song of Sirenia
					is a Sea of Senior Status. Try saying that in Latin, Dr. Egg.  Now
					that you know Her Secrets.  Gasp at the scope of their operations.
					WDWMWWS(ret) Wichita, KA
				
				
				34 Terror in Cologne2
				In the crypt under the cathedral at Aachen, under torture, Siegfried
					confesses:
				
				He knew it was the anti-depressants, the SSRIs, but he couldn't
					remember when he'd last enjoyed sex. He'd gotten off the plane in
					Havana, was met by Dionisio, and D had taken him to bed as soon as
					they got to 's casa particular. Dionisio, rubusto in his piel de canela, rubbed his
					penis against him, kissing deep as he could, and S masturbated himself
					to orgasm, feeling embarrassed at how long it took and how his
					descending balls were thrown around by the rapid and almost-painful
					flying grip. That was more than a year ago and he'd only jerked off a
					few times since. He was occasionally surprised by spacetime warps of
					desire. And what had love felt like?
				
				"Keep him awake all night," Ollie growls. "He's going to give up all
					of it!"
				As he thought about it now, he thought his sexual appetite had never
					lasted more than about fifteen minutes at a time. He'd had that
					fifteen minutes with a thousand men, but that had been about it-what
					satisfied him, as well as he could remember.
				The sex he first had was with himself. R___ G___ had taught him to
					jack off around age 13 and he'd refused to 69 with Ricky T___ and that
					other kid V___ because he didn't like the smell of V's crotch. Now, he
					confessed, the smell was his own. He had grown increasingly concerned
					about his own smell, worried about whether his gas leaks and pissy
					underwear offended others, as he was certain the tobacco odors of 2
					packs per day did.
				"Try stripping him and leaving him in a cold shower for a
					while-that'll get him singing," says the man in black.
				He'd always had a boyish way that drew stronger protective types.
					He'd enjoyed that so much that he'd never learned to be anybody else.
					He'd always been drawn himself to the iron-willed drag queen Tanye and
					others who were boldly exotic. They were badges he would put on to
					make himself authentic/. Years of criticism and self-criticism had
					made him more adept at the presentation of a self as sympathetic
					friend to women, to Blacks and Latinos. He took seriously the
					generosity with which Others (especially Black women) granted him the
					right to exist. Race and position in a hierarchy of gender/sexuality
					had always been the most important markers in his sexual adventures.
					He was glad he'd had them but anxious when he asked-or was
					asked-whether he had any authentic self of his own.
				
				"We're not sure this old guy has any authentic self of his own,"
					reported the junior black-suit to Ollie South. "He's telling us a
					great deal, but his guilt is hard to prove."
				"Never mind the proof, that's for sissies and appeals courts," South
					tells the interrogators. "Just keep him talking. Try the drugs."
				He knew by now the question had to be answered with a yes; after all,
					he did choose within the limitations of history and genetics. And he
					also knew the question and its answer taken together were a trap,
					sucking him into an illusory comparison of selves, reifying an idea
					that did him no good, and could only add to all the negative feelings
					of deficiency he confused himself with. He knew there is no authentic
					self, as there is no God, as ther is no deep reality, as Niels Bohr
					used to tell him.l But it was hard work to remember there is no
					authentic, and his political comrades and their revolutionary project
					had helped keep all that at only barking distance. He couldn't
					remember anymore what it was like to love anyone, let alone love the
					people.
				
				"His consciousness is clearly shattered under the yage," South was certain. "Now for the sodomizing
					humiliations."
				He wasn't sure he could remember how people talk to each other. He
					was always impatient with friends' recitations of their daily ins and
					outs-who did them wrong and how they recouped their self-regard, or
					not. He thought such talk was trivial and tried to not tell such
					tales, even to himself. It was difficult for a compulsive repeater who
					was used to saying over and over some phrase or song that caught in
					his mind.
				He understood now that nothing happened unless he wanted it to. The
					humblings must have been something he wanted, and the unhappinesses
					he'd thought stemmed from his deficiencies were feelings he'd
					obviouswly cultivated.
				And somehow, a few years ago, he began to take the pills and
					everything changed. He was no longer so sure he was an unhappy person;
					in fact, he felt pretty richtig most of the time and his brain was
					freer to think and play. If that happened because he swallowed an
					organic chemical it must mean his mind in its ceaseless processing
					must have been interpreting in a particular way, a way that he no
					longer had to experience. His unhappiness was an interpretation that
					was not necessary; he could just as well be patient and observant,
					mindful of how his narration of the extended recent time did not
					require that he feel his life was unhappy. He tried to say, "I'm doing
					ok, things are ok." He tried to say, "I notice that I feel down, that
					the world seems futile and tiring, especially in the morning." And "I
					notice that my mind is engaged and ticking more productively later in
					the day." And "I notice that I sleep a lot, and maybe that is
					compensation for reduced REM or deep sleep on account of sleeping
					pills." And ". . ."
				
				Siegfried gasps, wanting to please Ollie, "Is this honest enough?"
				South finds it takes very little to get S to talk, but his talk
					doesn't seem to identify any culprits. Ollie wants plots and
					conspiracies, and all he gets are the rambling self-accusations of an
					old man.
				With Joseph it is another matter. He, still considered a fugitive BLA
					outlaw, is subjected to all the usual tortures used on political
					prisoners in Leavenworth and Lexington, USA.59
				
				35 RE: Terror in Köln
				June 1, 2004
				Mr. Oliver South
				Chief of Cleansing Activations
				World Security Operations S.A.
				C/o Crypt, Aachen Cathedral
				Köln, Fourth German Reich
				
				Dear Mr. South:
				
				How are you? I am fine. I am a student in the seventh grade at the
					Parker Tyler School for the Young and Evil in Shaker Heights, Ohio,
					USA. My classmates and I have been reading in class about you and the
					old man named Mr. Siegfried Rheinfahrt. We are writing to ask you to
					stop torturing him and to to release Mr. Rheinfahrt and Mr. Joseph
					Jamal. They are good people, and you should not be abusing them.
				Mr. South I know you worked for the US Government in Iran and
					Nicaragua and now help our Brave Soldiers by questioning people in
					Kabul, Guantanamo and Baghdad. But you are not helping Our Cause by
					taking pictures of the prisoners have sex with each other. Sex should
					be between men and women who say "Okay, let's have sex' (with each
					other, I mean.) Our teacher, Father Michelin Pirelli, III, of The
					Absolutely Top Holiest Redeemer Reformed New Apostolic Charismatic
					Catholic Church, Old Latin Order, has always required that we say
					"Okay" before we have sex with him or go to the basement for
					chastisement. (By the way, it is done the right way-nuns whip the boys
					and priests whip the girls.) When they put The Question to us, I
					always answer "Yes" politely, so I get the cat o'nine tails, which
					feels a lot more fun than the cane. I think you should follow our
					example. And then let them go, because they have always said "Okay" to
					having sex, maybe even with each other. They might even have sex with
					you if you asked better.
				
				Yours truly,
				Temujin Genghis Khan Rabinowitz-DuBois
				and the whole 7th grade class at Parker Tyler
					School
				
				
				As Ollie South lets the letter drop musingly from his infected right
					hand, he rubs his eyes and reminds himself he hasn't washed his hands.
					Rinsing with water from the stoup, he wonders where this kid got
					information about WSA. He suspects the international zionist
					conspiracy, as evidenced by the next letter.
				
				
				Mr. O. South, White Capitalist Devil
				WSA
				
				Mr. South:
				
				We demand immediate cessation of sodomitical abuse perpetrated
					against Joseph Jamal and Siegfreed Rheinfahrt. These men are heroes of
					the worldwide anti-WTO libration movement and as such, even though
					they are innocent of all charges, will heroicly remain silent about
					their sabotage activities and of others they know carry them out. If
					you do not put these Heros on a plane immediately for Kuala Lumpur we
					will retaliate like you have never felt before.
				signed,
				The International Movement, totally legal supporters with ELF
				Copenhagen and Rio
				
				P.S. Watch out for your new Hummers in Kabul, you butt-fuck
					simulator!
				
				A message beeps in on South's Blackberry-powered Journada™ wireless,
					and South is confronted with a photo of himself naked, simulating
					receptive anal sex with Jamal atop the supine body of Rheinfahrt. In
					very large capitals, the accompanying text reads US Pull Out!
					Apologize to the Sodomized! Moral Is as Moral Does!
				
				"Let Jamal go," he barks to the assistant lapping his thighs. Release
					him drugged and well-dressed at the ramp to the Autobahn. No German
					will give him a ride. They'll think he's Turkish."
				"What about the old man?"
				Memory floods the synapses with a message once sung to him (by J or B
					or R ?):
				
				Yes, it's love I offer you and hope that you will keep.
				This love you see is true, from me;--but no-it is to weep,
				For you-pale white-cannot trust love from whom you've loved too long
				And yet deride with untaught pride-myh love is far too strong
				So what thing can I offer you? What gift is there to give?
				Not even dreams, or so it seems-for you refuse to live.
				So this I offer now to you is weak with right and wrong-
				Half dark, half light, half black, half white-a truly Bastard
						Song.60
				
				
				"Rheinfahrt stays. I think he knows more than he's told us. Get the
					Softening Machine. I'm going to go Nova on his ass."
				Siegfried, as Ollie hopes, is gratified to be lubricated and
					piston-evacuated. In a puddle on the floor, he thankfully blurts out
					what he thinks his dreadful interrogator wants to know.
				"There is no actual conspiracy; there doesn't need to be a
					conspiracy. The Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination61 explain that all substance is composed of
					non-self substances, and therefore no deep reality behind substance is
					to be found.
				Bohr was in contact with the timeless readers of the Pali canon and
					he and his wife, during their three-way marathon writhing with
					Heisenberg, they agreed on the Copenhagen Interpretation: The world we
					see around us is real enough, but . . . everyday phenomena are
					themselves built not out of phenomena but out of an utterly different
					kind of being. Wernie Heisenberg told me, 'The hope that new
					experiments will lead us back to objective events in time and space is
					about as well founded as the hope of discovering the end of the world
					in the unexplored regions of the Antarctic.' And N. David Mermin adds,
					'We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody
						looks.62'
				"In social systems," Siegfried groans out between thrusts of the
					Softening Machine, "Freddie Hayek tells me, '[t]his means that, though
					the use of spontaneous ordering forces enables us to induce the
					formation of an order of such a degree of complexity (namely
					comprising elements of such numbers, diversity and variety of
					conditions) as we could never master intellectually, or deliberately
					arrange, we will have less power over the details of such an order
					than we would of one which we produce by arrangement.'63"
				
				"You post-modernist Commies are all alike!" Ollie bellows. "What
					happened in E. Germany that turned you around like this?"
				"We thought Communism might be better if we stopped planning so much.
					Read Bakhtin on Rabelais if you really want to know. Skip Nietzsche-he
					was nuts."
				
				Another text message beeps in, this one from Oswald Spengler; "Give
					up on this you idiot! The West is dying and you ask why? NeoCon or a
					liberal, what are you anyway?"
				
				And
				Telegram for O. North
				From W. Reich
				01/06/04
				FORBID YOU USE MY MACHINE STOP STOP TORTURING MY OLD COMRADE STOP
					WILHELM
				
				Siegfried is left in the apse, as South and his WSA minions conclude
					that they are unable to conquer the old man's will.
				
				36 Operation Good Shepherd
				
				When Timmy gets the call from his half-brother in Cleveland, he is in
					Oslo, having a cigarette outside the Munchmuseet in an empty park next
					to a freeway. He and Marcel are accompanying a Zimbabwean uncle, Mr.
					Sithole's cousin Plainfield, and Plainfield's lover, the pretender to
					the throne of Oman. After the royal wedding in Copenhagen, the High
					Sheik's entourage have come in their yacht, frolicking in Bergen where
					Kaiser Wilhelm used to park his boat, and then by private railroad car
					to Oslo. They all love the smiling, almost-endless summer nights
					glinting on blonde hair. Timmy is grateful for a few hours away from
					the hub-bub.
				The Peer Gynt Festival, the more-rational mystic's answer to
					Bayreuth, is his uncle's destination: thousands gather in an outdoor
					amphitheater to see the dance of the Mountain King and imagine
					themselves as hardy pre-Vikings. Timmy is more taken with the
					Munchmuseet and a self-portrait of Munch in a bathtub, photographed
					around 1892. However, his absorption in the eyes of Edvard is
					disrupted when he hears of the abduction.
				"The old German and Joseph Jamal? What happened? Are they ok?"
				"Herr Rheinfahrt was found at death's door under the apse at Aachen,
					but Joseph is still missing. We sent letters to the security company
					asking them to release him. He's a wanted fugitive, so we can't
					contact the police."
				"I've got to find him. He's the only one who can possibly tell me
					what happened to Ana K."
				"Yeah, the story of her previous life was just picked up by Oprah
					over here."
				"So where is Aachen? What am I gonna do?"
				"Get to Cologne, that's the closest city. There can't be that many
					blacks in Germany."
				Timmy is frantic. through the fog of majoun so generously provided by
					the Sheikh, who insists on being called Beaky ("It's short for
					something you'd never be able to pronounce, my dears.") Unclear about
					geography, he accepts his uncles' guidance and a suitcase full of
					opium and flies off to Cologne. Marcel stays behind; the Sheikh and
					his friends love to watch his fair Gallic skin get sunburned and peel.
				
				Meanwhile, Joseph is picked up by a vanful of Turks on their way to
					the Eau de Cologne factory with a load of bergamot oranges.
				"We thought you were one of us," shouts the driver over the roar of
					five lower gears. "What is the matter with you? You smell like a fried
					chicken. Is that blood?"
				After lengthy and difficult explanations in pidgin-German, Joseph is
					taken to a guestworkers' hostel in the suburbs and cleaned up.
				As our view goes to a medium shot, he slides his bruised limbs into a
					deep bath fragrant with Dawn and thyme. Little Otika, the Czech
					owner's beautiful daughter, offers him a deep-tissue massage, but,
					exhausted, he falls asleep only to be wakened two days later by Otika
					and Timmy Tilden. Trading two kilos of homemade Turkish Delight for
					Otika's silence and eight kilos for carfare, the two former Amerikans
					of Afrikan Descent are smuggled out of town in haste to the Danube
					boats in Vienna. The Sheikh's contacts, which are of course kept
					secret from the Turks, are waiting with a barge, equipped with a
					clandestine stateroom under the load, turnips on their way to a
					pickling factory in Yerevan.
				
				After a few days on a private island in the Black Sea, our friends
					are able to use new passports to fly to Dubai and join Cyril and
					Vyvyan.
				"Thank heavens you're safe," coos Vyvyan. "Cyril and I were so
					frightened." Thanks to the Sheiks," Cyril adds, "we are having a
					little reunion here-my nephew Mobe is here with his friend Ferd also.
					You must join us for a few weeks of thrilling caravan travel. I can't
					take No for an answer, as we all seem to be wanted by that dreadful
					mercenary, Ollie South. I've already sent a scathing letter to The
					Times about them!"
				"Oh, Cyril. You didn't say anything to me before you sent it. You
					know you can't spell, and they'll know where we are, you booby."
				"Lots you know! Mobe helped me and we posted it through St.
					Petersburg."
				"Anyway, thank you for helping us," Timmy says. "But can someone
					explain to me what is going on?"
				"All will be revealed tonight. Now eat your apricots and dates. Rest!
					Our little wooly lamb and our black sheep!"
				". . ."
				As he falls asleep, Timmy wants to know:
				
				Are Cy and Vyv good gays or bad?
				How do they know the Sheikhs?
				What was going on in Oslo?
				What do Mobe and Ferd really do?
				Is Joseph a Buddhist or a terrorist?
				Is Ollie South a Christian or a mercenary?
				What about the murder of Ana K?
				The Baby?
				Herr Rheinfahrt?
				Why does everybody seem to know everybody else?
				
				37 Dedicated to the Memory of Siegfried Rheinfahrt
				
				My memory is really bad.
				I appreciate your dedication.
				The thing I most can't remember is how a woman feels inside.
				
					I've felt nothing lower than my heart for years.
					
						64
					
				
				
				The author admits he made Siegfried Rheinfahrt up. Siegfried isn't
					even his real name. He was christened in St. Nicholas Church in
					Leipzig in 1908 as just ordinary John Jacob Jingelheimer Schmidt, but
					people would all shout at him. As a chorister the boy would have sung
					the works of the Church's most famous kappelmeister, JS Bach. He often referred to this music as the
					"architecture of life," meaning that Bach provided a structure for his
					understanding during the complex changes he was to face throughout a
					long and difficult.
				The first documentary evidence of his name change is in his
					membership card in Der Eigene, a physical strength group with
					intellectual ties to Goethe's seminal romantic novel Werther. His youthful enthusiasm for camping and nude swimming
					left him-although not his liaisons with English upper-class
					homosexuals, one of which is thinly disguised in Spender's The Temple-- as Deutschland grew darker.
				His thought, as recorded in his journals during his years at the
					University in Freiberg, was first inflamed by the cult around Stefan
					Georg, but far more illumined by Hesse's Journey to
						the East. Although his philosophical studies show his great
					love and aptitude for Heidegger, then professor, soon to be Rector, at
					Freiberg, R remembers an increasing discomfort with H's "swooning for
					a leader" who would throw himself and the people into the Dasein. He
					is said by a classmate to have urinated on the library's holograph of
						Also Sprach . . Disenchanted, unwilling to
					accept "the hysterical mystifications of right-wing graecophiles,"
					Rheinfahrt left his studies and under the swaying of Christopher
					Caudwell, he joined the Communist Party in 1928.
				Comrades from that time equivocate, but refuse to agree to his
					description of himself as physically repellent; they note his
					honey-blond hair worn slightly too long and asking for the discipline
					of a good brushing, a well-developed physique and a mind quick to
					discern tactical opportunities in the contestations with the emerging
					Nazi movement. Viewers may catch a glimpse of him as he speaks to a
					crowd of Berliners evicted from their homes in Brecht's
					semi-documentary Kuhle Wampe.
				Unlike many of his peers, Siegfried was convinced by 1932 that the
					Nazis would take state power in order to save capitalism for the
					German bourgeoisie and its English investors. He disappeared, faking
					his death at the hands of Brown Shirts in a riot in Berlin, and
					embarked for Moscow for military and political training. Although
					independent corroboration is not to be had, a journal entry in 1936
					makes evident that he was back in Germany, involved with a Lutheran
					minister whom we know only as Dietrich B___. His recollection is that
					"Dietrich and I worshiped with great fervor," although he smiles as if
					to ssay this is not to be taken seriously from a Comintern-trained
					atheist. It may reflect S's disquiet about his sexual proclivities: he
					writes a sad record of longing and vacillation in his two-year
					courtship of a certain Karen, a Danish psychoanalyst, and his almost
					immediate divorce from her after their marriage in 1938. Despite
					considerable effort expended by the author, no clarity as to the
					identity or subsequent fate of Karen can be offered here. The
					precipitous rejection may have been followed by more dangerous events,
					as Karen is said to be of Russian, perhaps Jewish, extraction.
				The name Siefried appears frequently after that time in the Soviet
					archives of clandestine operatives. Recently released and decoded, the
					papers indicate a leading role for Rheinfahrt in the armed resistance
					to the Nazis within Germany. Some scholars may denigrate the efforts
					and the role of the Communists in the resistance, but the prominence
					of Rheinfahrt is certainly the reason why he was to emerge as a major
					figure in the liberated Democratic Republic of Germany.
				What marks Rheinfahrt's activity in the Party and Government in
					(East) Germany is the frequent criticisms and self-criticism he
					underwent. Apparently R was not enthusiastic about the transfer of
					industrial assets to the Soviet Union, and he is probably the unnamed
					party leader who was sent twice for proletarian internationalist
					education to Moscow. He returned each time chastened but quickly
					involved in new controversies. During debates over development of
					Leipzig's huge chemical plants, R is known to have said, "We don't
					want to stink up our country for all future generations." He was
					finally sent to Lubeck on the Baltic coast, where he oversaw harbor
					and shipping operations.
				He married his cook after she sustained a cerebral infarction in
					1974. Much of his writing of the time speaks fondly of Helga:
				My shriveling crabapple:
				I am fond of you.
				Your coffee and cigarettes smell dirty to me,
				And I regret that I am inadequate in love.
				
				It is not difficult to discern, hidden in this little poem, an
					expression of great regret that he felt himself inadequate in love.
					Found among the secret file of his papers is a photograph from 1973,
					taken on a beach, of a nude young man draped over a Trabant, a photo
					that he must have treasured, as he brought it with him into exile when
					he left Germany in 1980. He has lived in a series of residential
					hotels since that time, eking out his days with a faithful friend as
					he nears the age of 100.
				39 By the shores of Gitche-Gumee65
				
				By the shores of Gitche-Gumee
				By the shining, big-sea waters
				Stand the huts of Sy-ree-nee-yah,
				Freezing, rusting huts of labor.
				Sirenians here make marvels:
				They teach others to make anthrax,
				Send instructions internet-wards
				To prairie freaks and forest nutballs.
				
				Once the home of Hiawatha
				Now just Hiawatha High School
				Where the boys play steroid football
				And the girls get quickly pregnant,
				Once the home of Old Nokomis
				Now Nokomis Sunset Village
				Nursing Reverend Mud-ju-ko-vis
				Prophet of the coming Deluge.
				
				Mud-ju in his acid springtime
				Ate so many amanitas
				That he had a realization.
				Babbling brooks told him a secret:
				Humans were not truly worthy
				Rulers of the earth and skyways;
				They usurped the place of betters,
				Manatees and whales and dolphins.
				
				The Holy Bible showed the secret;
				God applied a test to Jonah,
				Sent him where he had no business
				Jonah tried to run away from
				God's inscrutable decision
				Got himself thrown to a seastorm.
				Wisdom came to Jonah only
				Deeply, deep inside Leviathan.
				
				In God's mightiest of creatures
				Jonah got Jehovah's message:
				Noah's flood was not effective
				Humans reproduced like rabbits
				Spreading eco-cataclysms
				From the ancient times to present
				Jonah's truth was quickly censored
				Masked by Moses and by Jesus.
				
				The mention of the Nile and Jordan,
				Baptism and wine from water
				Hint at secrets Mud-ju-ko-vis
				Learned to fathom in his trances
				And organic chemistry lectures
				At the Hiawatha High School.
				Amphetamines helped Prophet Mud-ju
				Win over big shoals of converts.
				
				Soon the Napkin Ring pre-teeners
				Cranked to headier trips through science
				Skateboard geniuses picked their pimples
				Over C A D design screens
				Searching data base collections,
				Of obscure heresies for wisdom.
				Easily they found connections:
				Pearl to pearl they threaded insights.
				
				Whales were first terrestrial mammals
				Who intelligently abandoned
				Dusty earth for buoyant water
				Freed from gravity they prospered
				Swimming paradise untrammeled
				Until humans came to hunt them
				Greedy for their vital essence
				Divine ambergris and oils.
				
				Now the oceans grew polluted
				Manatees were persecuted
				Whales were facing stark extinction.
				Righteousness demanded action.
				Mud-ju-ko-vis charged his minions:
				Go, disciples, simulate me
				Game-plans leading to the triumph
				Of marine mammals' command.
				
				Toiling night and day they plotted
				Graphs and maps of sea connections,
				Found deep troughs, a Northwest Passage,
				Researched aqua sound formation,
				Bubbled out communications,
				Listened for negotiation,
				Til at last, to their relief,
				God approved of their beliefs.
				
				Achmed-Oedipa for now-put down the illustrated pamphlet she was
					memorizing with little enthusiasm. "What drivel, set in what regular
					feet!" she exclaimed inwardly, never yielding the least outward sign
					of disbelief. She was well on her way to a ranking position within the
					undulating Sirenian orders, one where she would be privy to the
					deepest secret plans of the group. "I can't fish out the actual steps
					they are taking, besides building tourist traps with surplus
					submarines. What is the meaning of the turbans? I must get to the
					bottom of this."
				40 Venison Bride becomes a prophet
				Born in December of 1948, Venison Bride grew up in the Cornish
					section of Manistique, spending most of his youth looking dreamily
					from the cliffs over Lake Superior, vaguely persuaded that something
					special was coming his way. "The Wells Fargo Wagon" always had a
					special poignancy for him, as did the underwear ads-no, any ads for
					men's clothing (few in True and Argosy but plentiful in Esquire.) He
					was precociously literary, having found Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime
					Reading Plan at age 11 in a revolving paperback display at the
					drugstore while awaiting his orthodontist appointment. He read all the
					Great Books dutifully, racing to find out how each ended, annoyed at
					the peculiarities of style that made Stendhal different from Balzac or
					Homer from Virgil. He learned from another volume in the same display
					that his sexual fantasies about the crew-cutted athletes in his school
					were not normal, and that they had a name; in fact, he was most
					devastated to learn that his urinary appendage had a name and a
					different function, and he cried in embarrassment upon learning
					"penis"was the accepted name for what he and his brothers were taught
					to call the "wetter." And "vagina" was too confounding altogether.
					Having no sisters, never having caught his mother without her girdle,
					he was not so sure where this vagina was located or what it did.
					Ignoring it all was by far the best course, he concluded.
				Venison was named by his mother, who thought her son had a "freakish,
					gamey look." His father, a sarcastic reformed drunk, predicted that
					"he'd have an odd taste, not like ordinary meat," and it was true:
					like all Scandinavians, his sweat was sharp and acrid, a combination
					of genetics and overindulgence in rutabagas and lutefisk. He exhibited
					only the qualities of meat from the town's frozen food locker, none of
					the grace or equanimity of the live animal, and had the look of one
					larded with strips of fat through his flesh and ready for roasting.
				He spent all his summer days in the woods, moving from mossy stumps
					to damp rocks. He liked the uprightness of the third-generation piney
					woods, following deer trails he would look up to the cathedrals of the
					forest with a longing to worship something, even the spare sunlight
					between the rain-laden clouds scudding over from the Lake. His reading
					had brought him to Alan Watts, and he imagined himself a Zen hermit,
					sketched with a sumi-e brush in fuzzy lines in a woody cleft between
					limestone walls. Far better to think of himself as a hermit in bosky
					seclusion than a rejected, overweight and soggy egghead.
				
				In his dreary high school, Ven felt himself isolated and befriended
					only his teachers, making a mentor and confessor out of a recent
					graduate of the heavily-Finnish Houghton Tech who taught physics and
					chemistry. Mr. Nuola wore his flaxen hair in a flattop and neglected
					to shave the fine hairs that grew at the top of his Mongolian
					cheekbones, rendering him more manly in Venison's eye and even less
					resistible in the eyes of the a-line skirted girls who gazed with
					confusing desire at the porcelain skin revealed in the hollow between
					his clavicles under starchy, not-quite-expertly ironed collars and
					too-narrow bow ties.
				Chemistry was Venison's meat. He loved making banana smells of esters
					and quickly moved on to more complicated organic molecules. It was a
					short run from there to the distillation of epinephrine from Drixan
					inhalers and a growing taste for perspiring, gasping conversations
					with his only friend, Ambrose Broussard, a very dark French Canadian,
					originally Indian, farmboy. Ambrose suffered from obsessive-compulsive
					tendencies, often walking backwards for miles to erase what had
					happened earlier on the same route. It was he who led Venison to the
					loft above the horse stalls for long heart-to-hearts and masturbation
					as summer rains raised the smells of damp hay and animal excretions.
					Ven and Amby wrote away for morning glory seeds and explored their
					higher consciousness with the aid of IFIF and the Native American
					Peyote Church, to which Ambrose had a legal claim to belong, trudging
					through deep snows out onto the ice crags to peer into the fluorescent
					blue water unfrozen underneath.
				It was while staring into the impossibly deep waters of Lake Superior
					that Venison received the first intimations of his special mission and
					of mankind's aquatic mammalian peers. He learned that humans were
					hairless because they were originally aquatic apes, able to evolve
					into standing bipeds with the aid of the buoyant waters of the ages
					when they first emerged from the arboreal ecosystems that had limited
					them to chimp socialities.
				In his speed-reading he also happened on early studies of neuro
					anatomy, and found himself zeroing in on the hypothalamus.
				(h´´pthl´ms) (KEY) , an important supervisory center in the brain,
					rich in ganglia, nerve fibers, and synaptic connections. It is
					composed of several sections called nuclei, each of which controls a
					specific function. The hypothalamus regulates body temperature, blood
					pressure, heartbeat, metabolism of fats and carbohydrates, and sugar
					levels in the blood. Through direct attachment to the pituitary gland,
					the hypothalamus also meters secretions controlling water balance and
					milk production in the female. The role of the hypothalamus in
					awareness of pleasure and pain has been well established in the
					laboratory. It is thought to be involved in the expression of
					emotions, such as fear and rage, and in sexual behaviors. Despite its
					numerous vital functions, the hypothalamus in humans accounts for only
					1/300 of total brain weight, and is about the size of an almond.66
				
				
				How exciting to think that a part of the human brain was evolved from
					the fish, and how plausible, looking past the gnostoc into the cold
					waters of the Lake, that humans would be happier if they lived there
					without the elaboration of aggressive behaviors exhibited by the
					savage boys in gym class. How much better to be without these
					functions and to live as the sturgeon once did in these waters.
				
				HIAWATHA'S DEPARTURE
				
				By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
				By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
				. . .
				Level spread the lake before him;
				From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,
				Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;
				On its margin the great forest
				Stood reflected in the water,
				Every tree-top had its shadow,
				Motionless beneath the water.
				
				  O'er the water floating, flying,
				Something in the hazy distance,
				Something in the mists of morning,
				Loomed and lifted from the water,
				Now seemed floating, now seemed flying,
				Coming nearer, nearer, nearer.
				  Was it Shingebis the diver?
				Or the pelican, the Shada?
				Or the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah?
				Or the white goose, Waw-be-wawa,
				With the water dripping, flashing,
				From its glossy neck and feathers?
				  It was neither goose nor diver,
				Neither pelican nor heron,
				O'er the water floating, flying,
				Through the shining mist of morning,
				But a birch canoe with paddles,
				Rising, sinking on the water,
				Dripping, flashing in the sunshine;
				And within it came a people
				From the distant land of Wabun,
				From the farthest realms of morning
				Came the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet,
				He the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face,
				With his guides and his companions.67
				
				
				In an upcoming chapter: new research suggests a link between the
					hypothalamus and sexuality!
				41 The World's Best Shopping
				
				"We can outfit any expedition here. Dubai has the world's best
					shopping," said Cyril to Timmy and Joseph as they walked through the
					marble and gold portals of Jebel Ali Free Zone.
				"Complete with RPGs, as you will need them heading through the Sudan,
					" added Mobe 68. "You have a long, but history-enriched journey to
					make. "
				"Think of yourselves as Circassian royals, kidnapped from the
					steppes, being carried on camels to the harem of the King of Khush. If
					we could hire a few strapping Mameluks that would be the ticket!"
					exclaimed Vyvyan. "How nice of the Canadians to make a vehicle much
					more comfortable than the Bradley--safer too! And Timmy will be out of
					the sun."
				"David and Bathsheba!"
				"What's that one with Omar Khyyam?"
				"Cleopatra! We're doing Egypt, not Persia, silly old pig!"
				"Fayyum! Let's have encaustic portraits done! Big eyes! Like Keane!"
				"Where are we going?" asked Tim.
				"Nairobi, of course," Cyril answered. "Mobe has some work to do
					there, so he and Ferd have to fly. We will be on safari, following the
					path of Stanley and Livingston. Here we are, the offices of Empire
					Sattelite Uplinks and Security. You remember Bikki from Oslo, don't
					you?"
				Timmy thought he recognized the pretender to the throne of Onan,
					changed out of his gold lame shorts, now djellaba-ed and kaffiya-ed,
					who greeted Cyril and Vyvyan with a firm handclasp and bow.
				"You can get a nice date milkshake and we'll join you at the
					pearl-encrusted fountain over there in a little while, Timmy dear."
					Whispered Vyvyan, shooing Timmy toward Akbar and Jeff's Majoun and
					Date Oasis next door. "And Joseph, would you be so kind as to ask the
					Medecins Sans Frontiers people upstairs how much food we are taking to
					Darfur for them? How much water, how much dry tonnage, and how many
					security guards we will need? We can go to El Geneina if they wish,
					but that area is said to be stifling under Janjaweed. Thanks ever so .
					. ."
				Suddenly, they were thrown to the ground by the Sheikh's bodyguards,
					who started firing their automatics at two men in black Prada suits
					across the way. "Get down, get down! It's WSO!"
				Flipping forward in the air, the Prada men came on, raking the area
					overhead with uranium-jacketed bullets, shattering the glass fronts of
					the Empire SUS offices. Mall security guards and the Sheikh's men
					surrounded their master, as well as Cy, Vyv and Joseph, pulling back
					toward the elevator to the bunker underground. A grenade rolled
					Prada-wards and exploded, deafening everyone and spraying expensive
					black microfibers through the pierced and gilded ceramic arabesque
					gratings at the doors of Akbar and Jeff's. Tim was struck by a portion
					of one WSO assailant's head. When the bloody lump rolled to the floor,
					Tim recognized the remaining profile from the night of sex at the
					Hotel Real Desert. He wondered again how all these people were
					connected.
				"Well, dears," said Bikki, "I think we had better rethink the plans."
				Cyril was firm. "No, it's much safer in the desert than across the
					Straits and through Iran to Karachi. But Timmy and Joseph, we're so
					sorry, but you will have to miss the safari, I think. How about this:
					you go back to Paris and help our friends get their daughter to Buenos
					Aires?
				The Sheik agreed, adding, "I will send a couple of men-Neddy's
					brothers Chesterfield and Butterfield-along just in case. As for you,
					my old schoolmates, mightn't it be better to make your way through
					Yemen and then ferry across to Djibouti?'
				"Oh, I had such a good weekend in Djibouti . . . years ago, of
					course," sighed Vyvyan in reminiscence. "Remember dear, the French
					fort and the French letters?"
				42 Observations of the Omniscient Narrator
				Ferd Eggan, the author, not the character in this novel, sits naked
					at the computer. He finds his writing blocked.
				" It's always something! My eyes hurt and they're blurry." He smokes
					many cigarettes. He wants to write a clear exhortation to his peers:
					voting for Kerry is only an unpleasant first step in a genuinely
					worthwhile project: he wants to argue that world-historical changes
					require that we accede to-nay, accelerate-the decline and fall of the
					United States as a global power.
				Pulling the last puff on a Marlboro Menthol Ultra Light before the
					filter burns, he thinks, "My idea is complex and it's hard to make
					this argument coherent." He stubs out the cigarette and clicks on the
					draft of No Matter Who Gets Elected.
				"I should cut away all the digressions here," he breathes out with
					the thin smoke. He doesn't have much time today, as his friend Mary (a
					model for MonaLisa of the Desert) is coming down from the central
					coast and Walt, another friend, may join them for dinner. "Walt's
					always making plans and canceling. I always cancel too, so shut up."
					He looks at the draft.
				"I liked that little recitative by Ilia in Idomeneo.68"
				ILIA
				Dell'Asia i danni ancora troppo risento,
				e pur d'un grand'eroe al nome,
				al caso, il cor parmi commosso,
				e negargli i sospir ah no, non posso.
				Ilia
				Dell'Asia the damages still too much risento, and also d'un
					grand'eroe to the name, to the case, the cor parmi affected, and
					negargli the sospir ah not, I cannot. Babelfish translation service on
					AltaVista.
				Ilia
				I still resent the destruction of Asia,
				But this great hero-my heart is so moved--I cannot deny his right to
					live.
				My translation
				
				"I may be too Midwestern, too philistine, to really enjoy the
					slowness of that opera. I think Mozart should have speeded it up more.
					Is it me or what? Back to the draft."
				After a trip to the toilet and worry about bladder problems, he sits
					down and lights another cigarette. Here he looks at the draft of his
					argument.
				America, Over69
				
				
				Yeah, yeah, we should act to vote out the Bush/Cheney war-mongers,
					but let's act for something better and bigger. Iraq is not just a
					waste of lives over an oilfield. Iraq is a strategic battlefield where
					ordinary young Americans, hoping for education and escape from the
					suffocation of ordinary American lives, fight young Iraqis who hope
					for something very similar. Inexperienced, naive fighters are pitted
					against each other, one side to maintain the present corporate world
					order and the other to replace it. And it's not a fight just between
					Iraqis and Americans. Global market conflicts overwhelm any national
					power: look at Sudan, Russia, Indonesia.70
				
				
				No matter who gets elected on Nov 2, neither Kerry nor Bush will ever
					dare to address the most important issue: what is America? Our
					homeland? No, it's a military and political shield operating to
					dominate the global market, a market that doesn't care what ordinary
					Americans want. Bush and Kerry both use the rhetoric of American
					security and American power, but neither will admit that it's not even
					about this country. America as a great nation is over. We were, maybe,
					maybe, weighing the ideals (and the failures) of Jefferson and Lincoln
					and all, a country that embodied greatness once. But we are not any
						more.71
				
				
				Hey, What Happened?
				
				We, the people who used be so productive, were lulled out of our
					vitality by corporate grasping and by big demand for US goods and US
					dollars, until the stock market took its dreadful dive in 2000-2001.
					Prosperity was, of course, not spread equally among us: the average
					income declined but corporate income skyrocketed to the top. Most
					American working people have clung to belief in a future that afforded
					a home, college for the kids, insurance even for domesticated
					partners--until the US economy was converted from production of goods
					to production of money and financial equities. That future was a
					little like an LA garden, all exotic plants, tended and watered by
					people and resources brought from across the borders. Now not just our
					jobs, but even our money has gone overseas-to countries that actually
					produce things. All America can offer is flex-time service work that
					only immigrants can afford to take. Even the soldiers are taking pay
					cuts because of outsourcing.
				
				It Looks Bad
				So, instead of despair over the loss of good old America, let's take
					a compassionate look at the whole planet: living creatures nearly
					ruined, cherished moral and religious ideals perverted into family
					values, and competing, hostile forces that nations can not control. A
					stronger, more secure America is a nostalgic fantasy. And we cannot
					expect to negotiate our way out of continual wars either, because we
					blindly let corporations sell our birthright for a mess of oil and
					silicon chips--they use up all the bargaining chips. Neither Kerry nor
					Bush, neither good cop nor bad cop, can pacify, let alone rectify,
					this mess.
				
				What do we do now?
				Voting out Bush and Cheney could stimulate worldwide ideals of
					freedom, democracy and peace. We will be more secure if we dismantle
					America and open the whole garden. We can fight for a global order
					that's fits for this earth, based on the desires we share with all
					people everywhere. Things worth fighting for right now:
				
					No Borders! (no border defense)
				
					Free Health Care for Everyone! (nobody will need
					insurance companies)
				
					Free Child Care for Everyone! (any mother or
					father can work and every child can feel secure)
				Never mind that these are utopian ideas: the demands themselves move
					people to realize that if these basic human needs were met then
					competition for scarce resources would diminish. And they can be met,
					abundantly, from the incalculable wealth we produce together on this
					earth.
				* * *
				"I hope this says something," Ferd says to himself. "I grant that it
					does matter whether it's an avowed fundamentalist Christian militarist
					or a liberal who might be more malleable on issues, but Christ
					Almighty! What a poop Kerry is!"
				He's not confident that his argument addresses what he feels is an
					underlying problem; he wants to show that it's ok to love this place
					while fighting for a new global order that does away with American
					superpower.
				
				It's sad, isn't it? What we love is here, in this place. Where we are
					alive, we learn to love the scene, the settings in which we are
					conscious. Unnoticed, all the people and trees and sidewalks make a
					place, a country, which we consider central to the experiences we
					have. Their centrality might be illusory; after all, what we're really
					attached to is our consciousness, our aliveness. But mental processes
					become affect, our bodies and our brains do that in this place and we
					call our place America. We need to find some way to keep the love, but
					to give up the fatal connection to power, to glory. The republic of
					liberty, at least the hope and the struggle for liberty that marked
					the best of American days, is no longer to be. We mistook our best
					ideals for dominance. Maybe our canny self-reliant spirit, our ready
					smiles and readier cash, overwhelmed what possibilities of mutual aid
					and sympathy we possessed early on.
				
				We leave our author here, unsure that he has moved even himself.
				 
				43 Can Oedipa Be Trusted?
				
				When last seen, Oedipa was well on her way to a ranking position
					within the undulating Sirenian orders, one where she would be privy to
					the deepest secret plans of the group. "I can't fish out the actual
					steps they are taking, besides building tourist traps with surplus
					submarines. What is the meaning of the turbans? I must get to the
					bottom of this."
				
				Her cel sounds with the special security ring. "Hello, mein blau
					engel. Set for the following cypher: Liebst du um Schoenheit1." That will decode our conversation.," says the
					scrambled voice she knows as the rasp of Lemmy's urgency.
				Clara Schumann's lieder, "Liebst du um Schoenheit," Op. 12 No.
					4,plays over the phone.
				
				Liebst du um Schönheit,  (If you love for beauty,
				o nicht mich liebe!  oh, do not love me!
				Liebe die Sonne,  Love the sun,
				sie trägt ein gold'nes Haar!  she has golden hair!
				
				Liebst du um Jugend,  If you love for youth,
				o nicht mich liebe!  oh, do not love me!
				Liebe den Frühling,  Love the spring,
				der jung ist jedes Jahr!  it is young every year!
				
				Liebst du um Schätze,  If you love for treasure,
				o nicht mich liebe.  oh, do not love me!
				Liebe die Meerfrau,  Love the mermaid,
				sie hat viel Perlen klar.  she has many clear pearls!
				
				Liebst du um Liebe,  If you love for love,
				o ja, mich liebe!  oh yes, do love me!
				Liebe mich immer,  love me ever,
				dich lieb' ich immerdar.  I'll love you evermore!)72
				
				
				As the sad German music of mid-Victorian renunciation73 jangles in the earphone, Lemmy's message, routed through a
					special cryptographic program, is made plain.
				"You are in grave danger. Venison is accumulating millions of dollars
					and thousands of recruits with the aim of taking humans back to their
					aquatic beginnings."
				"I already know that."
				"What you don't know is that he has convinced his followers that a
					part of their brain, originally evolved in fishes, was passed in a
					distorted way to humans, causing aggressive behavior. They are
					removing the hypothalami of all the Sirenia converts, with the goal of
					making docile workers and re-aligning human sex to periods of estrus
					only. "
				"That's impossible!"
				"Impossible? Look at all the Sirenians. The heads of all the converts
					are wrapped in white turbans, which are conveniently mistaken for Sufi
					mystic gear, but in fact the turbans are stylized bandages covering
					the trepanning scars in their foreheads which were openend to remove
					the offending glands."
				In his aquatic bunker under Manistique Bay, Venison is listening to
					the intercepted conversation between Oedipa and Lemmy. He has been
					suspicious of her since she began to show signs of what he was
					convinced was a male mind. She was bold, logical--nothing like the
					females he wanted for Sirenia. The insights he had won from his
					explorations of consciousness made Venison very clear about enemies:
					he summoned Amby and the Pride of Sirenia bodyguards.
				"Get that girl-if she is a girl," Venison orders. I want you to test
					her hypothalamus to see if she is male or female.74 We have to kill him, her or it, regardless. She's an
					interloper who wants to interfere with my mission. The whales will
					rule the world again, or my name isn't Jonah!"
				44 Kenya with Mobe and Ferd
				Mobe and Ferd first see Nairobi from a taxi, surrounded by Masai in
					brilliant red cloaks trying to march from a park in downtown Nairobi
					to the British High Commission to highlight their rejection of
					colonial-era agreements that stripped them of their land. M &
					F are forced to flee on foot, as heavily armed police officers fire
					tear gas at the demonstrators and chase them for blocks. The Masai
					carry their traditional wooden staffs, knives and rungus, wooden clubs
					they use for self-defense, and picket signs.
				Later, at the Nairobi Hilton, they follow the story on television.
					"As a government, we are committed to the rule of law and the
					protection of private property,'' declares Amos Kimunya, the minister
					for lands and housing.
				The NY Times Marc Lacey tells viewers, over pictures of tall young
					African men with thin spears, "In scenes reminiscent of Zimbabwe's
					land seizures, angry Masai tribesmen have begun marching onto
					sprawling ranches held by white settlers in Kenya's lush Rift Valley
					and claiming the tracts as their own." [Pictures of lush land, with
					mountains in the background are shown, then police officers in riot
					gear forcibly ousting the men,] ". . whom the government calls
					invaders, as well as their cattle. The number of Masai arrested in
					recent days exceeds 100. At least one person, an elderly Masai man,
					has died, shot during a confrontation with the police."
				BBC World News tells our heroes that Kenyan officials have no
					intention of following Mugabe's example in Zimbabwe. Uprooting the
					ranchers, government officials said, would be disastrous for the
					economy, which relies heavily on Western assistance and on tourism, a
					major source of hard currency. On top of that, acceding to the Masai
					might encourage similar demands by the scores of other ethnic groups
					in Kenya, many of which have historic grievances of their own,
					officials added.
				In a special program produced by FOX News Africa, the blustery
					correspondent interviews wealthy Kenyan farmers. "The young warriors
					move in and cut the fences and bring in their cattle,'' said one white
					rancher, describing the recent raids in northern Laikipia. "You get
					between 5,000 and 10,000 head of cattle on your land.'' He called for
					firmer action against the trespassers, some of whom are from the
					related Samburu tribe.
				"The police need to be harsher,'' he said. "There have been too many
					warnings. There need to be more arrests. We need quicker, more
					forceful action.''
				But CNN correspondents praised the government: "The government has
					adopted a cautious approach to land reform. A new constitution that is
					being drafted proposes that the long leases granted to some wealthy
					ranchers, some of which exceed 950 years, be reduced to 99 years.
				"Happy Anniversary," Mobe tells Ferd. "It seems the land controversy
					started this month around the 100th anniversary of an agreement
					reached between British colonialists and some Masai elders. The deal
					pushed the Masai far from their traditional turf in the Rift Valley,
					where a railway was being built, into reservations on far less
					desirable land.
				"Yes," replies Ferd, booting up the computer plans of the hospital
					they target for the rescue operation, "Signed on Aug. 15, 1904, with
					the illiterate Masai using thumbprints, the document said the Masai
					leaders 'of our own free will, decided that it is for our best
					interests to remove our people, flocks, and herds into definite
					reservations away from the railway line, and away from any land that
					may be thrown open to European settlement.'''
				Mobe asks, "Exactly what did the Masai leaders received in exchange?
					As the years have passed and the Masai population has grown (and more
					and more of Africa becomes desertified), rangeland has become more
					scarce and the Masai's precious cattle have had far less land on which
					to graze. Masai leaders say the agreement ought to be invalidated
					because their predecessors were clearly taken advantage of by the
					white settlers.
				Radio Free Kenya presents a voice of protest: "We're now squatters on
					our own land,'' said Ratik Ole Kuyana, a Masai tour guide who narrowly
					escaped arrest at the protest in Nairobi on Tuesday. "I'd rather spend
					my days in prison than see settlers spend their days enjoying my
					motherland. I think Mugabe was right.''
				The room service porter, who is actually a local operative helping
					them avert the female genital mutilation scheduled for two days hence,
					informs M & F that, in moving onto the private land, "the
					Masai have not seized houses or harmed ranchers. But they have
					destroyed the electrical fencing that rings the properties and driven
					their own herds onto the land to graze." He tells them the area that
					has been the center of the protests is known as Laikipia, which sits
					just north of the Equator near the towns of Nanyuki and Isiolo. It
					boasts spectacular views of snowcapped Mount Kenya and more endangered
					mammals than any other area in East Africa, including the black rhino,
					Grevy's zebra and reticulated giraffe.
				A National Geographic magazine on the coffee
					table tells them, "Aggravating the current conflict is a drought that
					has hit parts of Kenya hard, prompting President Mwai Kibaki to
					declare a state of emergency recently."
				After the news programmes, they watch a televised debate. "Oh, no,"
					shouts Mobe, "It's my great-great aunt Karen! If she's here that means
					our mission must be known to them!"
				Karen, representing WTO tourist interests, indicates that Kenya's
					fragile tourist industry has been hurt in the past by fears of
					insecurity. The Laikipia area is a growing tourist area, with vast
					private game ranches.
				Karen tells the viewers, "The Masai have played an essential role in
					Kenya's terrorism-I mean tourism--strategy. Of Kenya's 50-odd ethnic
					groups, the Masai, with their red tunics and traditional ways, are the
					best known. They perform dances at lodges across the country, in which
					they chant in unison and leap vertically to seemingly impossible
					heights. Tourists also frequently visit Masai villages that highlight
					their age-old way of life, in which all land is considered communal
					and cows are the measure of wealth-very ethnic," Karen concludes.
				But the Masai, who are among the poorest Kenyans, complain "We see
					little profit from tourism and that many of the people who dress as
					Masai at lodges are actually from other tribes."
				"We're associated with wild animals,'' complains Roselinda Soipan, a
					Masai lawyer who appeared in court on Tuesday to defend some of the
					protesters rounded up in Nairobi. "If a tourist comes to Kenya and
					doesn't see a Masai, it's like they didn't see an elephant or a rhino.
					We're human beings, and we have a right to agitate for our rights.''
				We'd better hurry with our plans," says Mobe. "Our little caper is
					taking place against a backdrop of major global climate, social and
					political changes."
				"Well, duh," agrees Ferd.
				45 Dreamy Time
				
				
				A dream interrupted by the wake-up call at 3 am. Ana K.'s brother,
					now with a golden beard, young cool glasses, accompanied by a
					boisterous film crew. They took up all available space.
				
					I was with comfortable friends and attractive young
						men in a setting like Morocco-like Gerôme's Snake Charmer:
						75
					
					blue marble arabesques, sumptuous carpets, pointed
						arches.
				
				"What can I give you?" he kept asking.
				I was incommoded because the cutest young man was with him, but
					looking at me through long lashes over his muscled bicep, as if to
					say, "isn't this actually better?"
				"No," I said to the brother, "things have been dreary since you got
					here. I came with friends to study the language and culture and now
					your blond crew want to bring in girls. You can give me nothing. "
				
				To Do List for Nairobi 9/29
				500 ft nylon rope
				nebulizer w/capacity to fill operating room with drug vapor
				MDA NOT MDMA (no nerve damage-better hallucinogen76)
				Large quantities Demerol, Valium
				Gurney with false bottom to "disappear" recumbent figure
				Surgical scrubs, masks, etc.
				Sound system
				Robotic quadrupeds
				Visas for M, F, body in casket
				Car arrivals timed for 7:49 am
				Medivac helicopter timed for 8:37 am
				Mix (excerpts):Hovhanhess' Mysterious Mountain77,
					Messiaen's Meditations Sur le Mystere de la Sainte Trinité78, Ligeti's Clocks and Clouds79, Berio's Coro80, Lauridsen's Lux
						Aeterna81(pop sublimity)
				
				
				
				Subject: Daily Dharma, August 30, 2004
				from Bassui Tokusho Zenji82
				
				
				In a dream you may stray and lose your way home. You ask someone to
					show you how to return or you pray to God or Buddhas to help you, but
					you still can't get home. Once you rouse yourself from your
					dream-state, however, you find that you are in your own bed and
					realize that the only way you could have gotten home was to awaken
					yourself. This [kind of spiritual awakening] is called "return to the
					origin" or "rebirth in paradise." It is the kind of inner realization
					that can be achieved with some training. . . . You would be making a
					serious error, however, were you to assume that this was true
					enlightenment in which there is no doubt about the nature of reality.
					You would be like a man who having found copper gives up the desire
					for gold.
				
				"Showtime!" The plan is begun, 04:15 hours.
				46 After a couple of days in a Cologne emergency ward .
					.
				
				released to the streets without papers or money, Siegfried Rheinfahrt
					is now derelict, homeless in the part of the Bundestadt that he least
					understands. He makes his way to Frankfurt and the wardrobe-sized
					apartment of the one person he remembers from his few visits to the
					West during his ascendancy in the E. German Party. He rings hesitantly
					on a door in the red-light district. A business card taped below the
					peephole reads
				Fraulein Doktor Klara Kaligari,
				chiro-podiatrie, psychoanalyse
				mystische sprechen mit den toden,
				Marxist-Leninist-Mao-tse-Tung-Thought
				film-regie
				(geliebte großartigtochter von Karla B-S,
				berühmte liebeskind
				
					von Clara Schumann und Johannes Brahms.)
					
						83
					
				
				
				To the sound of für Elise, a stooped old personage in a blonde wig
					totters to open the door. Peering through false eyelashes, she croaks,
					"Comrade Siegfried Rheinfahrt, you look like the leftovers of death
					warmed up in der microwave. I'm glad to see you so miserable. Come in
					and see me; I can lubricate and be ready in a minute. And now, really
					no teeth. You used to say. . . Ha! Ha-ha-ho!" Siegfried can only
					stagger to the greasy Biedermeyer sofa and collapse. "Can I please
					have ein glass von wasser?"
				"My, my, how you have fallen down, you euro-communist, you
					revisionist traitor. Putzi, give my old friend some tea," the old
					personage tells a young man with a video camera, sitting next to the
					smoking stove.
				"This is Rosa von Praunheim, my spiritual daughter," she tells
					Rheinfahrt. "Rosa, mein Putzi, meet Siegfried. This decrepit old man
					was once my comrade and my lover. "
				"Klara, we were never lovers," says Siegfried, reviving with sips of
					strong tea. "You knew always that I love mankind; I never could not
					love a man."
				"I am not a man!" shrieks Klara. "And anyway, Karen is not a real
					woman. All her executrix posing and literary pretension. " She turns
					to Rosa to say, "Mein sister Karen stole him and they became my
					adversaries."
				"Karen has great-grandchildren already, whom she hates and never
					sees," Siegfried tells her. She's busy relating publicly for the World
					Trade Organization now. She consults on security operations for the
					whole of Europe-busy shooting terrorists, I'm sure, when she's not
					stuppen that Kolonel South."
				"It's the collision of our Deutsh Stalinism and sex desire, I'm
					afraid," chimes in Rosa von P., pointing his camera at Rheinfahrt.
				"Please, Klara, can you help me? I know you use morphine, " Siegfried
					moans.
				"How I remember that day in 1953 when the workers struck in Berlin
					and the Party told them to stop, sighs Klara.
				
					If we now have a socialist regime, the Berlin
						workers reasoned, then we should no longer suffer under the weight
						of production quotas. When Benno Sarel recounts the revolts of the
						construction workers along Stalinallee and throughout Berlin, which
						on June 16 and 17, 1953, spread to the big factories, the workers'
						neighborhoods, and then the suburbs and countryside of East Germany,
						he emphasizes that the most important demand of the factory worker
						was to abolish the production quotas and destroy the structural
						order of command over labor in the factories. Socialism, after all,
						is not capitalism.
					
						84
					
				
				"We should have emphasized that socialism also means the end of
					bourgeois ideas of love!"
				"Help me, Klara," Siegfried begs. "I need morphine. Joseph is
					todt-dead I am so sure. I am so alone. I am abject."
				 -----------------------------------------------------------------
				Extra Credit
				Schumann/Brahms Assignment 
				by Elaine Ernst Schneider
				
					May 2, 2001 
				
					
						http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679745823/lessontutor
					http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0395891191/lessontutorSchumann
					(Master Musicians Series)
				
				Background: 
				As a young man, Johannes Brahms was a close friend of Robert and
					Clara Schumann. They socialized publicly and Johannes was often in the
					Schumann home. When Robert Schumann died, Johannes continued his
					friendship with Clara. Clara Schumann, herself a renowned pianist,
					gave concerts that showcased her late husbandís work to support
					herself and her children. It is not known whether Johannes had always
					loved Clara or if the affection sprang from the relationship that grew
					after Robertís death. History does tell us that Brahms professed his
					love for Clara though they never married.
				For more detailed biographies of each of these classical composers,
					refer to:
				
					Johannes Brahms, and Robert Schumann, by Betty
					Fry.
				 
				Assignment Choices: 
				
				1. Write a dialogue that might have taken place between Clara and
					Johannes after Robertís death. Begin the conversation with Brahms
					confessing to Clara that he loves her. Use your imagination. Here are
					some questions to get you started thinking:
				- What might Brahms say to Clara to first open up the subject of his
					love for her?
				- Does Brahms propose marriage or is it he who never asks, rather
					than she who refuses?
				- What might have been Claraís reasons for not marrying Johannes
					Brahms? Was she still in love with Robert? Did Clara fear that if she
					married Brahms that it would be too awkward to continue concertizing
					with Robertís pieces? Or was there some other reason she refused
					Brahmsí affection?
				
				2. Write the lyrics for a song Brahms might have written for Clara.
					Keep in mind that words for songs during this time period usually
					rhymed.
				
				3. If you play an instrument, create an original short piece that
					Brahms might have written for Clara. Consider the emotions of love and
					how they might be conveyed through the music. Would the tempo be slow
					and the tone sad because love is unrequited, or might the tempo be
					fast and furious to show the frustration of two souls that never
					connect?
				
				As you begin these assignments, remember to keep in mind what was and
					was not ìsocially acceptableî in Johannes and Claraís day.
				
				
					Email your assignment to
					
						The Story Continues . . .
					
				
				
				47 A Time for Action
				
				04:30 hrs. Time for action in Nairobi. Ferd reaches for the remote
					just as Kenyan and other leading African runners are shown at the
					Olympic marathon. They almost always win, but this year's apparent
					winner, a low-ranked Brazilian, is knocked off the track by a
					defrocked Irish priest, impelled onto the course on a mission from
					God. The Kenyans are shown moving to protect each other as the tv
					clicks off.
				Voice over, through the radio in the car, on the television at the
					airport, in the ambulance waiting outside the hospital, we hear part
					of an historic speech, in honor of Kenyatta Month:
				"If we unite now, each and every one of us, and each tribe to
					another, we will cause the implementation in this country of that
					which the European calls democracy. True democracy has no colour
					distinction. It does not choose between black and white. We are here
					in this tremendous gathering under the K.A.U. flag to find which road
					leads us from darkness into democracy. In order to find it we Africans
					must first achieve the right to elect our own representatives. That is
					surely the first principle of democracy. We are the only race in Kenya
					which does not elect its own representatives in the Legislature and we
					are going to set about to rectify this situation. We feel we are
					dominated by a handful of others who refuse to be just. God said this
					is our land. Land in which we are to flourish as a people. We are not
					worried that other races are here with us in our country, but we
					insist that we are the leaders here, and what we want we insist we
					get. We want our cattle to get fat on our land so that our children
					grow up in prosperity; we do not want that fat removed to feed others.
					He who has ears should now hear that K.A.U. claims this land as its
					own gift from God and I wish those who arc black, white or brown at
					this meeting to know this. . . .
				. . Bribery and corruption is prevalent in this country, but I am not
					surprised. As long as a people are held down, corruption is sure to
					rise and the only answer to this is a policy of equality. If we work
					together as one, we must succeed.
				Jomo Kenyatta, speech at the Kenya African Union Meeting at Nyeri,
				July 26, 1952
				
				Sirens scream, paramedics and nurses bustle from station to station,
					patients awaken from nights spent on hard chairs to request attention:
					early morning is always busy at a hospital. When the obviously
					non-African anesthesiologist and consulting surgeon enter the
					operating theatre, heads among those bobbing around the young patient
					turn briefly but see not much more than their surgical masks. The
					young patient is already prepped, draped with white sheeting, her
					knees up, feet in stirrups, sedated and monitored. Her parents,
					anxious for their daughter who has only just resigned herself to
					undergo this procedure, huddle in a corner, dressed in sterile scrubs.
					The older aunt of the girl holds her hand and whispers comfort in her
					ear, which is haloed by the white stretch cap over the hair braided
					close to her scalp. A Kenyan doctor nods for anesthesia, and a
					commanding woman dressed in white with a tall head wrap approaches the
					patient; initiating the ritual, she lifts a small, precise scalpel.
					She pauses, and quotes from her nation's most famous author.
				
				[The discourse she quotes is extended and well worth reading in Facing Mount Kenya. See the website of Female
					Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project
					<www.fgmnetwork.org>where the chapter on clitoridectomy
					is printed in full, The Story Continues cites only short excerpts
					below.]
				
				INITIATION
				OF BOYS AND GIRLS
				
				
					THE CUSTOM of clitoridectomy of girls, which we
					are going to describe here, has been strongly attacked by a number of
					influential European agencies-missionary, sentimental pro-African,
					government, educational and medical authorities. We think it necessary
					to give a short historical background of the method employed by these
					bodies in attacking the custom of clitoridectomy of girls.
				
				[Here Jomo Kenyatta, political leader of Kenya's independence,
					describes the context in the integral Kikiyu culture of the custom of
					clitoridectomy of girls and other rituals surrounding it, as well as
					initiation ceremonies for boys. He makes it clear that these customs
					functioned to make young people part of community religious and social
					life and compares them to Jewish circumcision. He also makes plain the
					contemptuous-and contemptible-efforts of the Scottish Mission to
					destroy all "pagan" customs of the Kikyu people.]
				
				However, this urge for abolishing a people's social custom by force
					of law was not wholeheartedly accepted by the majority of the
					delegates in the Conference. General opinion was for education which
					would enable the people to choose what customs to keep and which ones
					they would like to get rid of.
				
				It should be pointed out here that there is a strong community of
					educated Gikuyu opinion in defence of this custom. In the matrimonial
					relation, the rite de passage [rite of passage]
					is the deciding factor. No proper Gikuyu would dream of marrying a
					girl who has not been circumcised, and vice versa. It is taboo for a
					Gikuyu man or woman to have sexual relations with someone who has not
					undergone this operation. If it happens, a man or woman must go
					through a ceremonial purification, korutwo
					thahu or gotahikio megiro-namely, ritual
					vomiting of the evil deeds. A few detribalised Gikuyu, while they are
					away from home for some years, have thought fit to denounce the custom
					and to marry uncircumcised girls, especially from coastal tribes,
					thinking that they could bring them back to their fathers' homes
					without offending the parents. But to their surprise they found that
					their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, following the tribal
					custom, are not prepared to welcome as a relative-in-law anyone who
					has not fulfilled the ritual qualifications for matrimony. Therefore a
					problem has faced these semi-detribalised Gikuyu when they wanted to
					return to their homeland. Their parents have demanded that if their
					sons wished to settle down and have the blessings of the family and
					the clan, they must divorce the wife married outside the rigid tribal
					custom and then marry a girl with the approved tribal qualifications.
					Failing this, they have been turned out and disinherited.
				
				[Some Aspects of the Ceremonies]
				. . . .
				Late in the afternoon an arch of banana trees and sugar-canes is
					built at the entrance of the homestead of the matuumo . . . .To start the race a ceremonial horn is blown.
					At this point the girls, who are not allowed to participate in the
					race, start out walking to the tree, escorted by a group of senior
					warriors and women singing ritual and heroic songs. When the girls are
					near the tree, the ceremonial horn is again sounded, this time
					indicating that it is time for the boys to start the race. The boys
					then start running in a great excitement, as though they were going to
					a battle. The truth is, it is really considered a sort of fight
					between the spirit of childhood and that of adulthood.
				. . . . ceremonial racing (. . .) determines the leader of that
					particular age-group. The one who reaches the tree first and throws
					his wooden spear over the tree is elected there and then as the leader
					and the spokesman of the age-group for life. It is believed that such
					a one is chosen by the will of the ancestral spirits in communication
					with Ngai, and is therefore highly respected.
				
				The mogumo ceremony occupies only a short
					time. As stated above, the boys climb the tree, break the top
					branches, while the girls collect leaves and twigs dropped on the
					ground. These are later tied into bunches and carried back to the
					homestead to keep the sacred fire burning the whole night and also to
					be used in other rituals, especially in making the initiates' beds.
					The songs rendered by the relatives and friends round the foot of the
					tree generally pertain to sexual knowledge. This is to give the
					initiates an opportunity of acquainting themselves with all necessary
					rules and regulations governing social relationship between men and
					women.
				
				At the completion of kunna mogumo (breaking of
					the sacred tree), the boys and girls are lined up according to the
					order of their adoption. Here a ceremony of taking the tribal oath
						(muuma wa anake) is conducted by the elders
					of the ceremonial council. The initiates promise by this oath that
					from this day onward they will in every respect deport themselves like
					adults and take an responsibilities in the welfare of the community,
					and that they will not lag behind whenever called upon to perform any
					service or duty in the protection and advancement of the tribe as a
					whole. Furthermore, they are made to promise never to reveal the
					tribal secrets, even to a member of the tribe who has not yet been
					initiated.
				. . . . The songs they sing on the homeward march are directed
					towards denouncing all things that are not fit and proper for any
					adult member of the community to do. Moreover, the phrases embodied in
					these songs are to encourage the initiates to become worthy and
					honourable members of the adult community into which they are to be
					graduated.
				. . . .
				At the end of the ceremony the boys and girls are free to go to their
					respective homes to rest until next morning. Care is taken to protect
					them from anything that might inflict wounds upon them, as the
					shedding of blood is regarded as an omen of ill luck. The initiates
					are guarded the whole night by senior warriors against outside
					interference. In every home a ceremonial doctor (mondo-mogo wa mambura) is assigned by the traditional council
						(njama ya kirera) to protect the initiates
					against any possible attacks from witchcraft and also against any
					temptation or enticement to indulge in sexual intercourse.
				
				. . . .[ After The Girl is Operated On]
				
				At the time of the surgical operation the girl hardly feels any pain
					for the simple reason that her limbs have been numbed, and the
					operation is over before she is conscious of it. It is only when she
					awakes after three or four hours of rest that she begins to realize
					that something has been done to her genital organ. The writer has
					learned this fact from several girls (relatives and close friends) who
					have gone through the initiation and who belong to the sane age-group
					with the writer.
				
				This signifies that the children have now been born again, not as the
					children of an individual, but of the whole tribe. The initiates
					address one another as "Wanyu-Wakine," which
					means "My tribal brother or sister." When the ceremony is completed
					all burst into ritual song. They bid farewell to one another and then
					leave the homestead under the escort of their relatives. On the
					arrival at their respective homes a sheep or rat is killed by the
					parents to welcome them home again and anoint them as new members of
					the community (koinokai na kohaka mwanake or
						moiretu maguta). At this ceremony the parents
					are provided with brass ear-rings, as a sign of seniority. This is
					done when the first-born is initiated.
				. . . .
				With such limited knowledge as they are able to acquire from their
					converts or from others, who invariably distort the reality of the
					irua in order to please them, these same missionaries pose as
					authorities on African customs. How often have we not heard such
					people saying: "We have lived in Africa for a number or years and we
					know the African mind well."? This, however, does not qualify them or
					entitle them to claim authority on sociological or anthropological
					questions. The African is in the best position properly to discuss and
					disclose the psychological background of tribal customs, such as irua, etc., and he should be given the
					opportunity to acquire the scientific training which will enable him
					to do so. This is a point which should be appreciated by well-meaning
					anthropologists who have bad experience in the difficulties of
					field-work in various parts of the world.
				Jomo Kenyatta85, from Facing
						Mount Kenya
					
						86
					
				
				48 Rabelaisian Body Matters and Flight to the Forest
					Primeval
				After manfully squeezing his nose to unseat a particularly
					intractable blackhead, pressing the flesh to the tearful point where
					he was forced to consider that the incipient rosacea there might be
					making the rhynodermis too thick, tougher that it had been when he was
					quite frequently used to squeeze in his lubricated, more comedogenic
					youth, Ambrose Broussard pulled down his underwear, kicked when the
					briefs-as they always did-caught on his moccasins, and sat down on the
					toilet. His buttocks seemed to hurtle past their usual resting point
					and collided, with little padding to diminish the impact as his flesh
					had gone the way of lipodystrophy, with the cold white rim of the
					toilet. A man alone can easily neglect to lift the seat, although
					Ambrose had recently replaced the unhygienic seat left behind by the
					previous tenant with a pristine pink one which he thought made a
					whimsical match with the pink tiles on the bathroom walls, yet he'd
					never been moved to harmonize the blue color of the floor tiles,
					perhaps because he'd painted above the tile wainscoting in a
					semi-gloss aubergine he thought was a further inspired choice.
				When he hit the rim, he was pleased that he was able to ejaculate
					"Holy Shit!" within microseconds of contact, congratulating himself on
					the miniscule time-lapse between pain signals and an apposite
					rejoinder. Having feared just this kind of undignified clapping of
					tender skin onto the chilly and narrow porcelain, he was wont to leave
					the seat down, until recently when it became redolently clear that
					tiny droplets of urine were deliquescing to burden the air with the
					fug of a public latrine. There was no completely agreeable solution
					except permanent vigilance.
				In any case, after replacing the seat and spreading his anal pore,
					his disappointment at the quantity and texture of the waste he pushed
					out was mollified only when a very organized plume of gas was emitted,
					followed by a much more gratifying, elongated extrusion of shit and a
					final firm fart that enabled the distended belly to regain some
					smoother roundness. The unhindered egress of his excreta permitted
					Ambrose a moment of reflection regarding the toilet as the biological
					altar where-not unlike the deep connection with Nature inherited from
					his Native American forebears--through autonomic muscular contractions
					and flexions of the organism, one performed the ritual of self-worship
					in which the very alimentary-eliminative tubular configuration of the
					human body was experienced most to resemble that of other
					animals--fundamentally. In fact, the coincidence of the English adverb
					connoting radical excavation of the underlying ground of animal life
					with the noun denoting the bottom part of the human body-not counting
					the lower extremities-entered his mind, spiced with a mild frisson of
					pride at the "primitive" adaptation that efficaciously coordinated
					involuntary peristaltic motion and voluntary bearing down and pushing
					to achieve evacuation. The sensation of clean unopposed extrusion,
					along with the bombast of flatulence and the highly parabolic
					presentation of urine through the manually guided penis, was
					pleasurable in the extreme, wreathed with smells that one could not
					deny were olfactory tokens of life, of healthy inward- and out-ness,
					although only one's own could be granted this status and exempted from
					the general disgust others' bodily excrescences could awaken in one if
					they originated from any of the rest of us. Ambrose had, like many
					warriors of the spirit, had occasion to taste this matter, but his
					palate rejected the ugly bitter flavor-so surprisingly, intolerably,
					different from its fetid and rich olorousness--and he concluded that,
					despite the alluring abjection it most theatrically might otherwise
					offer, coprophagia would never be his choice at the banquet table of
					infantile sexual fixations.
				Meditating on the high estimation Pascal placed on frequent and
					copious defecation, enjoying especially the more vernacular version of
					the triadic encomium to "good shoes, . . ?., and a warm place to shit"
					(what was that other priority he couldn't remember?), Ambrose turned
					his attention to more rigorous exigencies of the present situation.
					That is, he remembered he was entrusted by the Big Humpback Himself to
					bring in the suspicious Oedipa for testing. Hopping over the cold
					tiles, disregarding
				creeping neuropathic foot pain, attributable once again to what were
					blithely called medication side-effects, he therefore gave himself a
					shake, eschewed a wipe, preferring the prospect of a warm lavage, and
					turned on the shower, lighting a cigarette to enhance the waiting time
					while the hot water made its way from the distant heater to his
					bathroom. When all was right, he tossed his butt into the toilet and
					lathered and scrubbed.
				Ambrose Broussard knew about what were called "two-spirited" among
					the anthropological queers who wanted to authenticate their own
					proclivities and choices, and he felt a strong antipathy at the
					prospect of eliminating Oedipa. Moreover, his early support for his
					sworn blood-brother Venison's visionary schemes had diminished sharply
					in the last several months as the white-turbaned flocks of converts
					increased and Ven took on the vocal tones of incipient madness.
					Ambrose stalked out to his vehicle, a feul-cell equipped hybrid
					Hummer, roared to the edge of the compound, and swept Oedipa away with
					minutes to spare before the Fruit of the Sea armed security arrived.
				"What the fuck are you doing?" demanded Oedipa. "Let me out of here!"
				"The Killers are coming for you, and me too now that I'm running with
					you. We'll ditch this car at The Big Two-Hearted River. We'll go into
					the woods and walk to Seney, hop the train there."
				
				Chapter 49 Nick, Atala and Rene, Ambrose and ?
				
				"The Killers are coming for you, and me too now that I'm running with
					you, Ambrose told Oedipa. "We'll ditch this car at The Big Two-Hearted
					River. We'll go into the woods and walk to Seney, hop the train
					there."
				"That's ridiculous," Oedipa shot back. "What Killers? What for? And
					there is no train any more."
				"I mean we'll drive to Seney, through Blaney Park, and ditch the car
					at Seney. That's what I mean."
				"What are you talking about? I don't know you, and I'm not going with
					you anywhere. Take me back to Manistique."
				"Look, don't go all ignorant on me. I'm Ambrose. The Killers are
					Venison's Fruit of the Sea. They're after you."
				"Why would they be after me?" Oedipa asked.
				"Yeah, I wonder," Ambrose was getting impatient. "They might want to
					check out a Sirenia disciple who wasn't what she said she was?"
				When there was no answer to that, he asked, "Just who are you,
					anyway? You're really a guy, eh?"
				"No!" she retorted. "What's it to you, anyway?"
				"I'm sick of Venison and I'm saving your ass. That's what's it to
					me."
				They said nothing more until they stopped for food at the stoplight
					in Germfask.
				
				49 The Killers
				
				The door of Henry's lunchroom opened and two men came in. They sat
					down at the counter.
				"What's yours?" George asked them.
				"I don't know," one of the men said. "What do you want to eat, Al?"
				"I don't know," said Al. "I don't know what I want to eat."
				Outside it was getting dark. The streetlight came on outside the
					window. The two men at the counter read the menu. From the other end
					of the counter Ambrose Broussard watched them. He had been waiting for
					Oedipa in the bathroom.
				"Fuck it, give us four fried egg sandwiches to go. We gotta go, Al."
				"Fuck it, ok, but I want fries."
				"Two fries, four fried egg sandwiches, right?" George asked.
				"Say, you're a pretty bright boy, eh? Yeah. And hurry up. We gotta
					get to Manistique fast."
				Al lit a cigarette. "Give me a cup of coffee now though, "he said. He
					turned toward Ambrose. "What's up, Chief?" he asked Ambrose.
				"Nothing," Ambrose picked up his mug and swallowed coffee, It was too
					hot but he swallowed anyway. He could feel it burning all the way
					down.
				"That's three-twenty-five," said George, wrapping the sandwiches in
					waxed paper. "Plus twenty five for the coffee, three-fifty."
				The man turned back to look at the paper bag of sandwiches. "You got
					quarters, Al?"
				Al paid and the men left. Oedipa came out from the bathroom, behind
					the counter opposite the door. She sat on the stool next to Ambrose.
				"Don't look now, don't turn around. Those guys are The Killers,"
					Ambrose said. "We're lucky, they're Florida guys and don't know me. I
					bet they know what you look like, though."
				She took their coffee and sandwiches across to a booth. She motioned
					for Ambrose to sit on the same side of the booth, to make it more
					difficult for George the counterman to overhear.
				"OK, um, Ambrose," she said. Here's the deal. So, they're after me,
					I've gotta get to Sault Ste. Marie and across to Canada. I'll pay you
					to drive me there."
				"Nope, no, no Soo. I've got a powerboat in Deer Park. We'll go across
					the Lake to Batchawana Bay. And you'll pay, all right."
				"Whatever you want." She dropped her spoon into her coffee. "Can we
					leave now?"
				As they walked along the road to where the Hummer was hidden, Ambrose
					pursued his questions. "Start by getting real with me. No forked
					tongue with Indian!"
				Oedipa sighed, cleared her throat and began. "Get in, start the car.
					I'll be right there."
				As the engine turned over, the passenger door opened. Ambrose barely
					turned to see her. Then he heard a startling new voice. "This is real.
					The real is Achmed Oedipus bin Maas. I was sent here to stop Sirenia.
					In my laptop here is enough to send Venison-and you, if you're not
					straight with me-to hell."
				"Hey, no need for threats, ok." I'm here, right, saving your ass? I'm
					taking you to Canada, right?"
				"No, I'm saving your ass. Deer Park is out; they already know you'd
					go there. We're going to Newberry, and my associates will be waiting
					in Lake Superior Forest. Hit the road, Ambrose."
				 
				
					
						The reader is here instructed to imagine these two as if they
							were principal characters in Ernest Hemingway's various stories
							about Nick Adams, principally in In Our
							Time and Men Without Women.
					
					
						Pretend "The Killers" is modified to the present episode about
							the pursuit.
					
					
						Pretend "Big Two-Hearted River" is an idyll in the escape of
							Ambrose and Achmed. Since the reader is undoubtedly going to be
							successfully imaginative, it will be unnecessary to detail their
							time in the woods.
					
					
						Also pretend that they are Atala and Rene in the eponymous novel
							by Chateaubriand that helped start the romantic revolution in
							literature. This pretense will lend the present narrative-and, by
							metonymic conjunction, the romantic novel in general--a same-sex
							erotic charge.
					
					
						Last, pretend that they embody but contradict the white/non-white
							homo thematic of Leslie Fiedler's Love and Death
								in the American Novel.
					
				
				50 A Delightful and Needed Diversion
				(provided by bloggers)
				
				Wendell and Cass, two penguins at the New York Aquarium in Coney
					Island, Brooklyn, live in a soap opera world of seduction and
					intrigue. Among the 22 male and 10 female African black-footed
					penguins in the aquarium's exhibit, tales of love, lust and betrayal
					are the norm. These birds mate for life. But given the
					disproportionate male-female ratio at the aquarium, some of the
					females flirt profusely and dump their partners for single males with
					better nests.
				
				Wendell and Cass, however, take no part in these cunning schemes.
					They have been completely devoted to each other for the last eight
					years. In fact, neither one of them has ever been with anyone else,
					says their keeper, Stephanie Mitchell.
				
				But the partnership of Wendell and Cass adds drama in another way.
					They're both male. That is to say, they're gay penguins.
				
				This is not unusual. "There are a lot of animals that have same-sex
					relations, it's just that people don't know about it," Mitchell said.
					"I mean, Joe Schmoe on the street is not someone who's read all sorts
					of biology books."
				
				One particular book is helpful in this case. Bruce Bagemihl's Biological Exuberance,87
					published in 1999, documents homosexual behavior in more than 450
					animal species. The list includes grizzly bears, gorillas, flamingos,
					owls and even several species of salmon.
				
				"The world is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual and
					transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather," Bagemihl writes
					in the first page of his book. "From the Southeastern Blueberry Bee of
					the United States to more than 130 different bird species worldwide,
					the 'birds and the bees,' literally, are queer."
				
				In New York, it's the penguins.
				
				At the Central Park Zoo, Silo and Roy, two male Chinstrap penguins,
					have been in an exclusive relationship for four years. Last mating
					season, they even fostered an egg together.
				
				"They got all excited when we gave them the egg," said Rob Gramzay,
					senior keeper for polar birds at the zoo. He took the egg from a
					young, inexperienced couple that hatched an extra and gave it to Silo
					and Roy. "And they did a really great job of taking care of the chick
					and feeding it."
				
				Of the 53 penguins in the Central Park Zoo, Silo and Roy are not the
					only ones that are gay. In 1997, the park had four pairs of homosexual
					penguins. In an effort to increase breeding, zookeepers tried to
					separate them by force. They failed, said Gramzay.88
				
				* * *
				Elsewhere, a female ape wraps her legs around another
					female, "rubbing her own clitoris against her partner's while emitting
					screams of enjoyment." The researcher explains: It's a form of
					greeting behavior. Or reconciliation. Possibly food-exchange behavior.
					It's certainly not sex. Not lesbian sex. Not hot lesbian sex.
				
				Six bighorn rams cluster, rubbing, nuzzling and mounting
					each other. "Aggressosexual behavior," the biologist explains. A way
					of establishing dominance.
				
				They've been keeping it from us: There are homosexual
					and bisexual animals, ranging from charismatic megafauna like mountain
					gorillas to cats, dogs and guinea pigs. There are transgendered
					animals, transvestite animals (who adopt the behavior of the other
					gender but don't have sex with their own), and animals who live in
					bisexual triads and quartets.
				
				Bruce Bagemihl spent 10 years scouring the biological literature for
					data on alternative sexuality in animals to write Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural
					Diversity, 768 pages about exactly what goes on at "South Park's"
					Big Gay Al's Big Gay Animal Sanctuary. The first section discusses
					animal sexuality in its many forms and the ways biologists have tried
					to explain it away. The second section, "A Wondrous Bestiary,"
					describes unconventional sexuality in nearly 200 mammals and birds --
					orangutans, whales, warthogs, fruit bats, chaffinches.89
				
				
				* * *
				It is a fundamental Darwinian principle that traits and behaviours
					cannot spread over evolutionary time if they reduce an individual's
					personal reproductive success. To be more precise, an imaginary
					species consisting only of individuals with an exclusive and life-long
					homosexual behaviour will be extinct in one generation.
					Parthenogenetic (virgin birth) species do exist in nature, they
					consist of 100% females, but a 100% homosexual species has never been
					found. Such a species cannot exist. Just as a sterile species cannot
					exist. What does exist in nature are species with up to 10 percent of
					homosexuals, according to Bagemihl. But even this is a puzzle. If
					those individuals do not reproduce, evolution theory predicts that the
					percentage in the population must decrease continuously down to a
					level that is produced by new mutations. But we observe more than
					that. So how should the excess be explained? One possibility is
					bisexuality, the combination of homosexual and heterosexual behaviour
					in the same individual. But this cannot be the answer either, because
					bisexual individuals will produce on average less progeny than
					full-time heterosexuals. So the existence is still unexplained.
					Bagemihl skilfully demolishes a variety of explanations for
					homosexuality proposed by biologists. This is one of the best, and
					interesting parts of his book. Probably few people have the
					encyclopaedic knowledge of homosexual behaviour in animals to be able
					to refute the variety of hypotheses to explain (away) homosexuality.
					In the end Bagemihl concludes, somewhat surprisingly, that
					homosexuality has no function, it just is.
					Homosexual behaviour has an intrinsic value.90
				
				51 Can I Get A Witness
				(12 Nov Kenya Times) Witnesses say the girl's body levitated up
					toward the ceiling, 'Her knees were bent upwards, her legs still
					spread apart, her arms falling limp behind her, as the sterile drape
					slipped off and slithered to the floor,' reported a surgical nurse. "I
					didn't have the opportunity to make my ritual incision," commented
					Mrs. Adowe Kikuyu, a clan leader and indigenous medicine practitioner.
					"Suddenly, the ceiling parted and she went to heaven," her aunt said,
					sobbing. "It was a miracle-God called her to prevent my niece from
					going under the knife in that godless custom. I don't know what my
					sister and brother-in-law were thinking, to make the girl go through
					with such a thing in this day and age.' The doctor in charge was not
					available to speak with The Times."
				Cyril put down the Kenya Times and chortled a
					little in his glee. "Well, Vyv," he said, "we've done it. By now
					she'll be in the air heading to Paris and on her way to the Hotel Real
					Desert."
				"Caprice Sithole will make sure she's all right," added Vyvyan. "And
					it's time we got back there too. I hope the little baby is still
					alive, as we can be very helpful to her now, I think."
				What a happy reunion they all made back at the Hotel. Caprice
					prepared a magnificent meal of vegan blood-less black pudding, which
					their new guest found acceptable but odd, and all toasted to success.
				Cy and Vyv spent an hour before dinner conferring with MonaLisa and
					Novy, who appeared much assured by the conversation. Timmy, relieved
					to be home, shouted "God bless us, every one!"
				But not everyone was as blessed as Timmy might have wished. He
					learned that Herr Siegfried was still missing, presumably in Germany
					somewhere, and as for Joseph, well , Joseph had been unmasked as an
					impostor just after leaving Dubai. Apparently, an operative of World
					Security Operations had been transformed through complicated cosmetic
					surgery and planted to spy on them all,.
				Vyvyan said tartly, "He was discovered when he was found to have no
					recollection of the chord changes in 'Sophisticated Lady.' The bad
					news, however, is that the real Joseph has disappeared."
				"No, I'm afraid not," Neddy interjected. "Look at this news from
					Fox-Europe."
				There on the television was Joseph, manacled, his legs in shackles,
					being led off an airplane in Chicago, Illinois. The Attorney General
					was then shown announcing that a long-time fugitive, undoubtedly
					connected with international terrorism, had been caught and extradited
					back to face murder charges in the US. The AG thanked Mr. (formerly
					Colonel) Oliver South for his work in apprehending "this white-hating,
					cop-maiming monster."
				The BBC featured Kenya news as well. The winner of the Nobel Peace
					Prize was announced to be Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan activist who
					"founded an Africa-wide movement that empowered women, confronted
					corrupt officials and planted millions of trees in ravaged forestland.
					"Never mind that she thinks AIDS is a man-made plague to kill
					Africans," sneered Caprice. "Sadly, she's right for all the wrong
					reasons. "It's killing us, and the conspiracy is among the rich
					nations (too selfish) and the poor nations (too corrupt) to pay for
					medical care. And we have the Catholics and the Protestants, who can't
					agree on anything, united in condemning people for their sexuality. I
					spit on Mugabe, and Nujoma and all of those fools!"
				"Mama," her daughter Xoliswa cried. "It's because of the history of
					colonialism. Kenya and Zimbabwe have the same problem with whites
					robbing us of our land. And Christian values are what we need. All the
					Highlanders football stars are Christian now."
				"Ugh," Neddy grunted. "My uncle was a Reverend, but he would never
					have acted like Mugabe. And he would have negotiated better land
					deals. He's just whipping up poor farm laborers to riot because he
					won't fight the agribusiness giants that own all the land. Same as in
					Kenya."
				"Affairs in Zimbabwe are our task, Neddy, not the children's. They
					are practically French by now," said Caprice, bending her husband's
					elbow to bring the champagne glass to his lips again. In attempting to
					turn the gathering back toward festivity, she urged everyone, "Let's
					leave political strategies for another day. Look, we have little Timmy
					back, Cy and Vyv are well, our new niece was saved from cutting. And I
					hear there may even be hope for Little Baby Nell."
				"Heavens," invoked Vyvyan, "we have to appreciate our small victories
					and work to expand the power of the multitude. That remains our
					mission. I expect we'll soon hear from some friends with news of Lemmy
					and Achmed as well. I for one will breathe an effeminate sigh of
					relief when this go-round is over and we can move on to new
					adventures."
				52 December 4 is the anniversary of the killing of Fred
					Hampton.
				
				Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the
					Black Panther Party, was killed on 12/4/1969 at the age of 21. He was
					one of the targets of Cointelpro, the FBI's secret
					counter-intelligence program.
				
				Instead of the usual chapter of The Story Continues,
					readers are asked to consider the following two important items.
				
				1. The following article (excerpted from a much longer
					article that can be read at the url cited at the end of this excerpt)
					outlines some recent Federal counter-intelligence operations.
				
				newswire: Press Clipping 
				25-Oct-04 23:51
				
				Legal & Judicial  | Surveillance/Harassment
				
				The new COINTELPRO
				
				author: Camille T. Taiara
				
				The feds are spying on ñ and harassing ñ political activists with a
					fury not seen since the 1960s.
				
				EARLY THIS MONTH the federal government launched the latest crude
					offensive in its so-called war on terror. Titled the October Plan, the
					program called for "aggressive ñ even obvious ñ surveillance" of a
					wide range of individuals (regardless of whether or not they're
					suspected of any criminal wrongdoing) until the Nov. 2 presidential
					election, according to an internal document leaked to the press.
				
				The plan ñ a collaboration between the Federal Bureau of
					Investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other agencies
					ñ involves renewed scrutiny of mosques and interrogations of people
					whose national origin, religious faith, or political leanings might,
					in the eyes of the feds, indicate even the most far-flung relationship
					to "terrorism."
				
				Immigrants and others interviewed by the FBI have been "questioned
					about immigration status ñ theirs and others' ñ and about their
					political and religious views," the National Lawyers Guild's Stacey
					Tolchin said at an emergency press conference called by the San
					Francisco branch of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee,
					the Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers, the NLG, and the American
					Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
				
				For staffers at these organizations, responding to these kinds of
					crackdowns has become alarmingly routine. This is the fifth round of
					FBI "informal interviews" targeting immigrants based on their national
					origin, religion, and, increasingly, their political views.
				
				No one knows just how many have been deported as a result of the
					interviews or of the various dragnets conducted over the past three
					years. Local NLG attorney Nancy Hormachae reported that at least
					13,000 people were forced into deportation hearings as the result of
					the notorious Special Registration program alone. And the fact that
					none of these campaigns has proffered a single al-Qaeda operative
					hasn't deterred the Bush administration a bit.
				
				So far, immigrant Muslims and those from the Middle East and Central
					Asia have suffered the brunt of the Bush administration's attacks on
					civil liberties. But as NLG immigration attorney Mark Van Der Hout
					told me, "Going after immigrants is just the first step towards going
					after U.S. citizens."
				
				Indeed, a look at the past three years shows that Attorney General
					John Ashcroft's offensive has widened to include a range of citizens
					whose only real crime is their opposition to the Bush administration's
					policies.
				
				The FBI comes calling
				
				President George W. Bush, Aschroft, and company have made it easier
					to spy on everyday citizens without probable cause of criminal
					activity, even allowing for the indefinite detention of Americans
					dubbed "enemy combatants," without charges or access to a lawyer.
					They've eviscerated laws meant to keep a wall between the CIA and the
					FBI and erected an extensive domestic-spying infrastructure, enlisting
					private citizens and relying on private industry to a degree never
					seen before. Today federal agencies are maintaining a grand total of
					10 domestic watch lists.
				
				The Bush administration has shifted federal funding away from
					traditional law enforcement and toward domestic spying, explained John
					Crew, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California specializing in
					police practices and surveillance issues. "A lot of this activity is,
					in fact, being carried out by local police working with the Joint
					Terrorism Task Force," he told me, explaining that those agents are
					considered "federalized." They report to the FBI. Local city officials
					ñ even local police chiefs ñ are often not aware of what these
					"special officers" are doing.
				
				As the Bush administration loosened professional standards for law
					enforcement, it simultaneously increased financial incentives for
					conducting surveillance, Crew continued. "To qualify for grants,
					[local law enforcement] must have organizations in their locale that
					are threats," he said. "They have to justify their own budget by
					amplifying the threat factor."
				
				[. . . . . elision of many examples of spying on activists]
				
				Civil liberties watchdog groups obviously worry about the chilling
					effect these kinds of surveillance and crackdowns have on our
					faltering First and Fourth Amendments. But they also insist that
					Ashcroft and company's approach isn't making us any safer.
				
				When law enforcement fails to distinguish between violent criminal
					activity and legitimate dissent ñ and when it favors collecting as
					much information on as many people as possible rather than useful
					intelligence resulting from bona fide criminal investigations ñ it's
					"choosing quantity over quality," Crew said. "You develop good leads
					by generating trust, not by disrespecting people's rights.... [And] if
					you're looking for a needle in a haystack, adding more hay doesn't
					help any."
				
				The bills that have recently passed through the House and Senate in
					response to the 9-11 Commission's findings, reorganizing intelligence
					gathering and expanding Big Brother's reach even further into our
					everyday lives, just promise more of the same.
				
				"It's during times of fear when civil liberties are most at risk,"
					Crew said.
				
				Research assistance provided by A.C. Thompson.
				
				source url:
					http://www.sfbg.com/39/03/cover_anniversary_cointelpro.html
				
				
				2. The Center for Constitutional Rights is organizing
					efforts to bring the US to trial for war crimes in the matter of the
					Abu Ghraib prisoners.
				
				Call on the German Federal Prosecutor to Investigate Rumsfeld and
					Other U.S. Officials for War Crimes at Abu Ghraib
				
				The Center for Constitutional Rights and four Iraqis who were
					tortured in U.S. custody have filed a complaint with the German
					Federal Prosecutor's Office against high ranking United States
					civilian and military commanders over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison
					and elsewhere in Iraq.
				
				We are asking the German prosecutor to launch an investigation: since
					the U.S. government is unwilling to open an independent investigation
					into the responsibility of these officials for war crimes, and since
					the U.S. has refused to join the International Criminal Court, CCR and
					the Iraqi victims have brought this complaint in Germany as a court of
					last resort. Several of the defendants are stationed in Germany.
				
				Defendants include Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, former
					CIA Director George Tenet, Lt. General Ricardo S. Sanchez,
					Major-General Walter Wojdakowski, Brig.-General Janis Karpinski,
					Lt.-Colonel Jerry L. Phillabaum, Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, Lt.-Colonel
					Stephen L. Jordan, Major-General Geoffrey Miller, and Undersecretary
					of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.
				
				German law allows German courts to prosecute for killing, torture,
					cruel and inhumane treatment, forcible transfers and sexual coercion
					such as occurred at Abu Ghraib. The world has seen the photographs and
					read the leaked "torture memos" - we are doing what is necessary when
					other systems of justice have failed and seeking to hold officials up
					the chain of command responsible for the shameful abuses that
					occurred.
				
				Please join our effort! The German Prosecutor has discretion to
					decide whether to initiate an investigation. It is critical that he
					hear from you so he knows that people around the world support this
					effort.
				Please go to their website
				
					http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/whatsnew/action/actionAlert2.asp
				
				and sign on to a letter to support this action.
				
				Thank you for your attention.
				F
				Chap 53 Some Convergences
				
				
				Achmed grabbed Ambrose at the shoulder of his coat and pulled so that
					they were sitting very close together, each able to look over the
					other's shoulder to monitor any approach. "We're here, " he whispered.
					"No unnecessary moves or sounds, ok? Handguns only, although I don't
					think we'll need them."
				"So what do we do now?" Ambrose asked. "We've had no lights, no radio
					or cel contact, and silence for the last three hours.
				"Yeah, pretty peaceful, eh?" He pulled off his watch and told
					Ambrose, "Make sure everything is turned off, no electronics, no
					metal, no plastic, no nothing."
				Achmed made a pile of all their gear, and led them about 10 meters
					closer toward the lake. He started to take off his left boot and
					whispered to Ambrose, Take off all your clothes; strip down, nude,
					nothing., Just lie back with your arms open."
				Ambrose did what he was told, but "Damn," he thought; "danger is a
					turn-on, but I am not going to let this guy fuck me out here-on the
					run, get my ass froze off or shot off."
				"Don't think about it, just do it," he was told. "It's snowing, it's
					getting dark, and it's the only way we can get picked up by the infra
					red sensors."
				Not even a minute later tracer bullets flew over them, streaking
					toward the lake in the thickening snowfall.
				"Don't get up," as if Ambrose wouldn't think of getting up, but it
					did cross his mind to raise his head and steal a look at Achmed, just
					to check on what kind of toolkit the guy was operating with.
				Achmed yelled now over the gunfire. and there came the very welcome
					sound of a camo-white Kiowa OH-58D91, lobbing
					rockets into the treeline as it swooped down between the unseen
					pursuers and our heroes A & A.
				In a matter of seconds, somebody had bundled up the two naked men and
					strapped them into the helicopter. As they rose and headed out north
					over Lake Superior, a parting round of rocket fire threw a humvee into
					the air behind them, its occupants catapulted up flaming and then down
					hissing in the snow.
				On board the Kiowa, a female in what was obviously flight gear but
					exhibiting no identification, wrapped Achmed and Ambrose in thermal
					blankets and started iv drips to rehydrate them, pushing in a dose of
					ativan to calm frayed nerves, but instructing them to be conscious of
					long, slow breaths. Satisfied with their vital signs, she left them to
					drift a while; both were quiet for what seemed to be quite a long
					time, until the same female reappeared with a clipboard and a cel
					phone.
				"Printed here is a timetable I am instructed to share with you. It
					details certain activities by persons you are acquainted with or that
					you will otherwise find relevant. The phone is programmed to put you
					in touch with the persons who contracted for this operation. They are
					waiting to speak with you." Ambrose was surprised when she handed the
					phone to him.
				When he pushed the talk button and heard a voice say his name,
					Ambrose was surprised again. He was talking not to Venison, whom he
					had expected to hear gloating after re-capturing them. Instead the
					voice seemed British and cheerful. "Well, well, " it said, "good
					Indian. I expect you wonder what has happened, and who we are who are
					whisking you away."
				"Yes, I am, " answered Ambrose. "I gather you are on Achmed's team,"
					he said, looking over at the man who had turned the tables on him,
					switch-hitting; first a damsel in distress Ambrose was saving from
					Sirenia, now a man with powerful connections who turned around and
					saved Ambrose.
				"Yes, you could say that, " said the voice on the phone. "Achmed is a
					highly-skilled and very valuable asset to our team. You could say he's
					the David Beckham of the gender expression team."
				"Ok, I guess. I don't know who that is, and I don't know who you are.
					What is going on here? Where are we going?"
				"My name is Vyvyan. I'm going to leave it to Achmed to answer most of
					those questions. For now, I'll just say congratulations on your
					resourcefulness. You are safe now, in good hands I promise you. And
					you are going, after a few stops, to Argentina. It's summer there now,
					so I expect you'll enjoy it. Now will you please give the phone to
					Achmed? Cheerio!"
				From a hotel room in Torquay, Vyvyan spoke to Achmed while Cyril read
					from the laptop screen about a product line in unmanned airborne
					vehicles.
				"Welcome to this year's Shephard's UV North America Conference and
				Exhibition. Last year we reviewed Transformation in Action. This year
					we
				examine an extension of this philosophy entitled Global Persistent
				Surveillance (GPS). This unique and new warfighting concept
				underpins the massive reorganisation and new initiatives impacting
					both
				the operational and intelligence community capabilities. The nature
					of the
				threat and the tempo of operations demand a radical departure from
					the
				way we have managed information flows, shared products and provided
				'actionable information' to the warfighter. 
				
				Due to the world-wide global set of threats and the new terrorist
					threat
				paradigm, GPS is a national imperative for both national and tactical
				intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems.  UAVs
				represent an efficient and effective solution to provide a 'cursor'
					over a
				target under any conditions and at any location.  This year we
					rightly
				focus on GPS for our conference because of the critical role UAVs
					will
				play in making GPS a successful strategy.  Again welcome to
				Shephard's UV North America 2004. 92ì
				Chap 54 Our Man in KL
				
				Medium shot: a food stand on Jl. Petaling, Chinatown night market in
					Kuala Lumpur. Lighting is dim, from a naked low-wattage bulb overhead.
					A vendor dishes spicy noodles into bowls for customers lined up on the
					sidewalk. A family is sitting on the ground at a low table, passing
					dishes around. The men wear t-shirts above their sarongs, while the
					women, in blouses and skirts, all wear scarves on their heads, pinned
					just below their chins. The camera pans slowly and reveals a man in
					western clothing slurping noodles . . .
				
				"Hey, what's he doing there? Go back, get that white guy out of the
					shot. Oh, fuck it, cut! Cut!"
				A continuity person rushes up to say, "I'm sorry sir. Do you speak
					English? Yes, well, we've rented this stand for the next two days.
					You'll have to eat somewhere else." He reports back to the director,
					Oliver Stonehenge, noted for his films RFK, Battalion and Natural Born
					Maimers. Stone is in a down patch of his career and is in Malaysia
					shooting footage for a Singapore-financed cheapie about the bombings
					in Bali. For reasons of tourist confidence, he has not been allowed to
					blow up sidewalks in Bali itself and has instead set up shop in KL.
				The man who was moved out of the food stall takes his bowl and moves
					next door to another stand. He sits down and continues to eat.
					Although deemed undesirable by Stonehenge, he is important to readers
					of this story; he is Lemmy Caution, last seen in Chapter 31.
				Lemmy has walked around the city all evening after an excruciating
					meeting with Malay Exotics, SA, Inc. at the Petronas Twin Towers. He
					took off his white turban about an hour ago and is now carrying it in
					a Starbucks Merdeka Square-KL paper bag, hoping nobody from Sirenia
					has followed him. He needs to clear his head after three hours in
					which his ostensible colleagues from the cult competed with the
					import-export people (actually smugglers of exotic animals and animal
					products) for dominance, each with the aim to manipulate the other
					with the most subtle and insulting deviousness. Malaysia has a complex
					history of conflict where the Malaysian Chinese have suffered the
					xenophobic odium of native Malays and the Malays have resisted the
					acumen and the power of the Chinese in the economic and cultural
					spheres, particularly under the racist colonial policies of Great
					Britain, policies that still rankle although more than 70% of
					Malaysians can claim mixed European and Asian heritage.
				Lemmy, who is nominally a consultant for Sirenia, has chafed at the
					insistence that he adopt for the duration of the contract the Sirenian
					strictures on costume, diet and celibacy. At today's meeting Lemmy and
					two female Sirenians were attempting to finalize a deal in which they
					would purchase a live dugong, a purchase that is illegal under
					Malaysian law and international protocols on the preservation of
					endangered species. The animal, allegedly orphaned in the wild
					although undoubtedly from its only remaining habitats around Gunung
					Kinabulu Park in Sabah. was to be paid for in ringgits, the local
					currency. Trading in Malaysia has become legendary for the bewildering
					and profitable rapidity of calculations of ringgits and yuan, dollars
					and now euros.
				
				If the Sirenians and not Stonehenge were writing the script:
				Talking-head shot, widening to shot of an office sumptuously
					appointed with 15th C. Chinese paintings, silk
					rugs, a shining conference table made of rare bohdi tree wood. The
					speaker, in a slightly dated Gautier epauletted mao suit, with a
					semi-military fragrance, is shown to be talking to three persons in
					white tunics and white turbans, in a scene that owes too much to
					orientalizing pictures like Shanghai Express
					and The Letter. Mr. Ibrahim Hahathir of Malay
					Exotics, having abandoned his opening price of 7.6 million ringgits
					(3.80 ringgits = 1 US dollar) is now offering to deliver the "big
					fishie."
				
				Hahathir: "Dear mystical friends, we understand that some
					unscrupulous individuals can
				be persuaded to bring this magnificent beast to the dock at KL for a
					mere 4.5 million," he says smiling, offering exquisite oolong tea to
					his guests.
				The women shake their white turbans to say no, but Lemmy accepts.
				Lemmy: "How can we trust these unspeakable criminals to assure us the
					animal is
				healthy?"
				H: "Oh, our expert veterinary staff will of course be on available to
					you for a thorough
				examination. And for a nominal cost, we can even find shippers who
					will cross the Pacific and bring it directly to a port on the West
					Coast of the US. "
				He hands Lemmy a tiny cup carved of rhino horn, containing a barely
					lip-moistening droplet of the rarest tea in the world. Lemmy takes the
					cup but refuses the powdered opium Mr. Hahathir offers to scoop into
					his cup with a repellently long fingernail on his pinky.
				L: "Of course, a sound animal will require very special treatment en
					route."
				One of the Sirenians, who have been expecting this ploy regarding
					trans-oceanic shipment, hastens to say,
				Sirenian: "Oh no, honored child of the eastern sea dragons, we will
					undertake the
				shipping. It's safer for us."
				A palpable chill passes through the room at this maladroit refusal.
					Mr. Hahathir, turning to his teapot, sighs,
				H: "I cannot countenance the remotest possibility that you and your
					cargo might undergo
				risk from the notorious pirates because of our negligence. Despite
					the risks a foreigner might face, we were prepared to make certain the
					precious creature arrived . . . alive?
				
				Script notes by Quentin Quiet-noted treatment development reader for
					Mirromax Films
				What is most visible here is the severely narrowed operational scope
					of the Sirenians, who suffer from too much early viewing of films
					depicting Wily Oriental Gentlemen (viz, the
					origin in English colonialism of this term).
				Suffice it, for the plot, to say that the Sirenians greedily offer up
					to US$ 2 million, knowing that a conglomerate of dentists in Marin
					County will pay three to see the live dugong swimming in the tank of
					their office. Little do they know that the Pirate Queen, a beautiful
					and ruthless young Malay woman (bearing a suspiciously plagiaristic
					similarity to a Pirate Queen in a film cribbed from a book entitled
					Your LIFE Story by someone else) determined to protect her heritage,
					will interfere with their plans.
				This script could be a smash: Criticality meets Ironic Distance meets
					Denise Darcel in Flame of Calcutta.
				
				The real question is whether Lemmy Caution's secret mission will be
					successful, which will require at some point that his secret mission
					be disclosed to the reader.
				
				
				55 Skeleton Key to The Story Continues
				
				An electronic serial novel, The Story
					Continues . . includes fiction, poetry, parody, pastiche,
					pornography (n.b.) philosophy, physics, psychoanalysis, plagiarism.
					The story has a queer leftist orientation: stylistically it's All My Children mysteriously meet Gargantua and Pantagruel.
				
				
					The Story begins in The Hotel Real Desert (cf.
					Zizek on The Matrix), just outside of
					EuroDisney, where many curious and colorful characters are staying.
					They are
				
				
					
						Cyril Burst and Vyvyan, Lord Throbbing (cf. Wilde, Firbank) two
							ageing British queens who run a foundation to rescue sex-variant
							children;
					
				
				
				
					
						Herr Siegfried Rheinfahrt (cf. Wagner, Weil, Brecht) a former
							anti-Nazi communist, bureaucrat in the GDR, now a cynical addict
							to opiates;
					
				
				
				
					
						Joseph Jamaal, an avant-garde jazz musician, now a political
							exile in Europe, accused of terrorism in the US, who is
							Rheinfahrt's valet;
					
				
				
				
					
						Caprice and Neddy Sithole (cf. Achebe's novels), the cook and
							major domo of the hotel, political refugees from Zimbabwe who
							operate an underground network of African resistance fighters
							throughout the "Dark" Continent, financed by the Napkin Ring;
					
				
				
				
					
						Oedipa/us Achmed bin Maas, a transgendered, shape-shifting Iraqi
							whose mission is to infiltrate and destroy oppressive cults and
							political formations;
					
				
				
				
					
						Lemmy Caution (cf. Godard), an American alcoholic and leftist in
							recovery, long-time comrade of Achmed;
					
				
				
				
					
						MonaLisa and Novy, a lesbian couple with two daughters, one of
							whom is murdered in the first scene of The Story;
					
				
				
				
					
						Countess Karen Blitzen Yousopoff, the stick-thin aristocrat who
							directs public relations for the World Trade Organization and
							functions as a liason to many paramilitary groups;
					
				
				
				
					
						Col. Oliver South, USMC ret., a born-again Christian whose
							still-vital connections with power have landed him a position as
							the world's top anti-terrorist mercenary, head of World Security
							Operations, Inc, ;
					
				
				
				
					
						Tim Tilden, the great-nephew of notorious and brilliant gay
							tennis star of the 1920's, Big Bill Tilden, a young albino
							African-American adopted by the Sitholes;
					
				
				
				
					
						The Baby (once mistakenly named Little Nell-cf. Dickens),
							daughter of MonaLisa, who is electrocuted and lies near death,
							thinking thoughts about consciousness and cognitive development, a
							la Piaget;
					
				
				
				There are currently 54 chapters of The Story Continues. . . An
					archive of the whole novel so far is at The Story
						Continues website
				
				
				
				Each week a new chapter of the serial is emailed. If you want to read
					it as it should be read, just reply to this email with "I want to
					read" in the subject heading. You will be added to the mailing list.
					Readers are also invited to contribute narratives, comments on the
					themes and issues, or anything they like that relates to The Story Continues . . . A link on the website
					is provided for that purpose.
				
				56 As the World Turns
				
				
					
						Mrs. Ima Caution
					
				
				1789 Rue Marat
				Quebec, Quebec, Canada
				
				Cher Maman Greetings from Phuket!
				Happy Holidays from this paradise in Thailand. I came here the day
					before yesterday (day before Xmas) for a little holiday. The beach is
					beautiful and all people are so friendly. I can't walk down the beach
					in my thong without somebody yelling a cheerful "Thai boy here!"
					There's a cute little elephant named NingNong that carries a little
					girl on its back. It must be young, as it is only a little taller than
					its owner/trainer. The little girl has ridden every day, and says Ning
					Nong is her best friend. Most of the tourists here are from
					Europe-lots of families but a good sprinkling of singles as well. Not
					tawdry like Kuta, either. I am glad to be out of KL (see Chap 54) for
					a week or two, as my assignment there is stalled while we wait for
					permission to export goods.
				I miss you, ma cherie, but I do not regret missing the snow up in
					Quebec. I'll write more soon.
				Ton fils,
				Lemmy
				
				
				
					
						FOX News 12/28/04
					
				
				Elephant saves little girl in tsunami
				(shot of elephant and Thai man on beach)
				NingNong, an asian elephant that works on the beach at Phuket is
					credited by a little English girl with saving her life in the tsunami.
				The little girl, whose name is Edwina Drood, (shot of girl) says she
					and NingNong had seen each other every day for the previous three
					weeks, and she was spending her last day on the beach yesterday before
					departing for home.
				As the wall of water crashed toward the beach, many birds and animals
					reacted more quickly than humans. Ning Nong apparently searched the
					beach, found Edwina, and carried her on his back to higher ground.
				(Shot of Edwina saying) "He saved me! He really loves me!"
				Her family have agreed to send Ning Nong and his owner/trainer Mr.
					Chittalongcorn 25 euros a month for care and food.
				(shot of dogs running on beach) This is not the only story of animal
					heroism here in Phuket. A dog is said to have herded a little boy who
					was running toward the water back to his family in the nick of time,
					exhibiting the shepherd instinct in his breeding.
				Bitta Root, reporting for Fox News Phuket
				
				
					
						from: Bröderbund Men's Shelter
					
				
				Frankfurt, Deutschland
				December 27, 2004
				To: Herr Josef Jamaal
				Hotel Real Desert, Paris, Frankenland
				
				Dear Josef,
				Where are you? Are you well.? I have heard nothing from you. I am
					almost in prison here. I was made to suffer all the hells of
					detoxification from my morphine, and I miss you. I came to Frankfurt
					to see my old comrade, (see Chap 46) but she made me leave after two
					days. I had no money, no clothes, no nothing and I am desolate. I had
					a whole day when I thought or dreamed I lived in Köln in 1200, a
					member of the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit.
				All my dreams for the future are long gone; the fascists are rising
					again all over the world. The US has become the new 1000 year Reich
					and wants to annex Iraq, Iran, Korea, everything. Resistance is futile
					for an old man like me. I am so lonely. Can you please come and help
					me?
				LETTER RETURNED TO SENDER-NOT AT THIS ADDRESS -CONTACT US DEPT OF
					STATE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
				
				
				
					
						US BOP inspected correspondence
					
				
				Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center
				Chicago, IL, USA
				
				Addressee: Herr Siegfried Rheinfahrt
				Hotel Real Desert, Paris, France
				Inmate: Joseph Jamaal HiSec#579586
				Date: December 27, 2004
				
				Herr Rheinfahrt,
				I was apprehended by US Marshals and brought back to the US. (see
					Chap 51) I am in prison, facing charges of terrorism from 1971. You
					may remember that when I fled through Algeria, Eldridge Cleaver
					denounced me and said I never did anything to help the Black
					Liberation Army. But that does not satisfy the Justice Dept. There is
					a small committee of people supporting me, and the Populist Legal
					Agency is defending me. The political climate in this country has
					changed so much. The liberals are the most craven cowards. Can you
					please come and help me?
				
				LETTER RETURNED TO SENDER-NOT AT THIS ADDRESS
				
				
				
					
						Found in the pocket of Siegfried Rheinfahrt
					
				
				Brothers and Sisters,
				We, the last remnants of the Catharists here in Frankish lands (see
					Chap 29), face persecution from Bernard of Clairvaux. In particular,
					the women have been seized and burned as witches-all part of the
					male-supremacist purge of women's leadership in spreading the real,
						revolutionary93 news of the gospels. The dog,
					"saintly" Bernard, has denounced the theological position that God is
					immanent, insisting that God is totally transcendent and that humaan
					aspiration to unite with God can be fulfilled only after death.
					Margery Kempe and others have roundly defeated this argument, but the
					Church cannot face a congregation that understands The Knowledge of
					Good and Evil.
				
				We call on future generations to help us. In the future, we forsee a
					huge peasant rebellion, caused by widespread dispossession of land
					tilled by residents and sparked by a new reformation of religion. We
					also forsee an overthrow of the ancien regime and the establishment of
					the idea of rights inherent in each individual person. Sadly, we
					expect that one superpower will tie reformation theology and
					ficticious "rights" into a license to rule the world. Martyrdom is our
					only option n
				[Here the text is broken and nothing is legible except one phrase:
					CAVE AT THE POOL OF JUIQUEE JUACHAY]
				 
				
					
						Intergalactic Net Correspondence
					
				
				From: Trzzz, Ethnobiologist on assignment (see Chaps 27-28), Planet 4
					of Sol system, spiral galaxy 37584894395A-D49485839.
				
				Esteemed Colleague(s) on Altair 4
				Observation has grown problematic here at Chauvet, as compassionate
					commitment to the humans arises. Over the last few centuries I watch
					their bewilderment at the rapid growth of cerebral cortex and its
					integration into two hemispheres. When the hemispheres were separate,
					the humans took the voices in their heads to be communication from
					gods. Now that the two hemispheres are bridged, they are so lonely,
					realizing that the only voices they hear are their own. Can I bear to
					watch them invent power hierarchies of gender, occupation, accumulated
					wealth, religion or other devilments without acting to help them? Must
					I? What about all our ethical strictures on action ethnobiology? We
					cannot just watch suffering.
				
				I have decided to invest in human minds, culminating around the 6th Century BCE, a set of realizations regarding
					being and otherness, which should usher in a golden age of tranquility
					and cooperation for the next 10,000 years.
				Trzzz
				57 Catching Up on Old Friends
				
				
				dear Cousin Timmy
				Happy Winter Solstice I have not heard from you in a long time.
				
				I was promoted to eighth grade and I left Parker Tyler School for the
					Young and Evil because (I think) my gym teacher cardinal Pirelli , is
					afraid I will blab about how he dresses up like Saint Sebastian during
					archery I never liked being in the basement anyway with those grisly
					pinups of Mr. Yukio Mishima ( Pirelli says he used to be a japanese
					teacher here but I think he's lying) and Mr. Derek Jarman.!!!)
				
				So Tim what are up 2? CAN I COME VISIT YOU IN JUNE??? when school is
					out.-- My mom says I can go anywhere -- she is busy with her new ugh!
					Boyfriend (dirtball)
				
				Yr cuz,
				Temujin Genghis Khan Rabinowitz-DuBois94
				
				8th grade, New Age Academy Inc.*
				
				New Age Academy is a secure facility for boys and girls with ADD. We
					are not responsible for any actions of students undergoing Ritalin or
					other pharaceutical treatment.
				
				
				
				++++++++++++++++++++
				Where are they now?
				Paris, France (AP)
				Mlle. Terpsichore Prion the fetching winner of the Mlle. Disney World
					Competition last year at EuroDisney95, was told
					yesterday that she would have to submit frozen samples of her brain
					and organ tissue immediately to the French National Bureau de Santé.
					It is suspected that she contracted Mad Cow Disease (bovine
					encephalopathy) while employed as a milkmaid at the Disney amusement
					park.
				"But they are mechanical, miniature cows!" expostulated Mlle. Prion
					when contacted by our reporter. "This is obviously political
					persecution for my totally legal support of the ELF Liberation Front."
				"ELF Lib," as it is called by its adherents, is alleged to have
					burned 45 Hummer vehicles last year in the parking lot of EuroDisney
					and to have secreted a communiqué claiming their action was "Operation
					Heraclitean Fire," for "little people of all ages," in a toadstool in
					Swiss Miss Land. Mlle. Prion is an adult person of small stature, some
					2'13" in height who was on daily exhibition in the Swiss Miss
					environment.
				"The woman is obviously paranoid," said Lt. Col. Oliver South (USMC
					ret.), the head of World Security Operations, the private firm that
					brought Prion to the attention of authorities. She was bound in a rug
					and left in the lost and found at the Gare du Nord, say unidentified
					agents of the Sureté. "We are grateful to Col. South," said the
					agents, "but we question his tactics."
				Found in Prion's small apartment were posters of famous "rap"
					musicians, including MC Solaar, Lil' Bit, Lil' Kim, as well as a
					letter addressed to the world music superstar Mobe 68. The letter, in
					part:
				Dear Wonderful Mobe 68,
				You dot'n now me, but I am your biggest fan. You should not worry
					about that fag (oops, sorry, my bad-I dot'n mean you).. Eminem. I mean
					you should make him your bitch and that would clean his clock for him.
				When are you going to sing in France I love you so much please send
					me your underware.
				XXXXOOOO
				Terpsichore Prion
				
				+++++++++++++++++++
				 
				Southeby's Auction Lot 239u837824
				Reserve: 15,000 Euro
				
				A Holographic Letter from George Eliot 96 to
					Klara Kaligari97
				
				
				15 December, 1857
				
				Dear Laura,
				How delightful to have yours of October last. And how is Siegfried
					taking your new liason? During the meeting of the International
					Movement for Zion last night, I was reminded of you. Someone mentioned
					Husserl, who, I had forgotten, was himself a Jew but got himself
					baptized. I searched Ideen and wrote this in
					reaction:
				The I-Beam
				Husserl rightly points out that we are able to slide up and down the
					pole of the ego-beam at will, moving now toward the thing, now away
					from it to consider the act of knowing and its modalities. For
					example, noematically I can consider a certain cat who probably
					exists, but then I can turn back noetically to assess the degree of
					certitude that characterizes my consideration of that selfsame cat as
					existing (# 105). Now if we were to slide down to the point where all
					modalities are behind us on the noetic side of the pole, and if there
					we were to face the object, we would get the pure sense of the object
					in which its unity is given.
				My best to Rosa von Praunheim, that butch thing!
				MaryAnn
				
				+++++++++++++++++++++
				
				message on the anwering machine of Ambrose Broussard98
				
				
				"This is Ambrose. I am back in Manistique briefly. If this is a
					Sirenian, do not communicate with me any more. Others can leave a
					message but I am moving to London. My new email is [email protected].
				
				++++++++++++++++++++++
				message to Ambrose
				
				"It's Cyril! Hurry, Ambrose dear, and bring all your leatherstockings
					and such. It is Panto season, and our young(ish) friend Ian MacKellin
					is playing Mrs. Twankey. We are taking you to meet him the day after
					you arrive. All despite being in black, mourning for poor Renata
					Tebaldi, truly the voice of an angel now! We'll meet your plane at
					Heathrow, dear. Have a safe flight."
				58 If Time, Not Space; If Space, Not Time
				
				In Islington, on a rainy Sunday night in January, Cyril, Vyvyan and
					Ambrose emerge from the cinema, commenting on their disappointment
					with What the Bleep.
					
						99
					
				
				"That film100 is nothing, dear boys," says Cyril,
					"but an infomercial for a particular type of Buddhist thought, which
					has seized on quantum mechanics as an explanation for their
					theological concern with consciousness and the desire to shed "the
					ego" in order to be at home in the new construal of the universe."
				Willing to play the interlocutor (not unlike Alan Alda in science
					programs on US public television), Ambrose asks, "but don't you agree
					that matter is no longer to be thought of as solid and stable, and
					that energy is what makes the universe?"
				"Let's start more simply, " ripostes Cyril. "The film's expert-a
					chiropractor, so he undoubtedly has the scientific background to
					comment on this-tells us that functional MRIs show the same areas of
					the brain are active when looking at, say, an apple as when
					remembering an apple. He then says this indicates that the brain
					cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is only
					remembered. Therefore consciousness is constituting reality. That's
					just bad science!"
				Vyvyan sees his point: "First of all, the fMRI is not precise enough
					to show that the very same neurons are active in both cases. . And
					here's the car. Mind your umbrellas!
				"Second, if I may second your searchlight brilliance dear Vyv," adds
					Cyril, "the film assumes that consciousness and the brain are
					coterminous, congruent. That leaves out the whole rest of the body,
					including the eyes, the muscles that move the lenses in the eyes, the
					skin of the hand that might hold the apple-everything else."
				"Why yes, of course," muses Ambrose as the ancient Bentley coughs,
					sneezes and is finally underway. "That means that the assertion about
					consciousness constituting the world is not proven by that argument.
					But what about the Heisenberg101 quote-'atoms are
					not things'? We know from Bohr and others that the act of observation
					changes phenomena: observing a subatomic particle can determine either
					its location or its momentum, but not both. In fact, all we have are
					probabilities for where any given particle is prior to observation: it
					could be everywhere or nowhere.
				"Theories abound, darlings, to explain this uncertainty principle,
					but the purest is the Copenhagen consensus, right Cyril dear?" That
					there is no thing, no entity we can call matter, or energy, or
					reality. All we can do is ascertain probabilities, which do not
					definitively prove anything is anywhere. "
				Ambrose interjects, "For that matter, it doesn't disprove it either."
				Cyril is more measured. "In fairness, Bohr's formulation102 that there is no thing called reality is not the
					only way to see the universe. Einstein might still be right that God
					does not play games. David Böhm103 sees implicate
					order. Most scientists are agnostic on the question of whether there
					is a "real" universe out there independent of our observation of it."
				"The best that can be said is that observation (and we could stretch
					and call that consciousness, I guess) is implicated in every
					phenomenon we can observe and seemingly in every phenomenon we can
					theorize to explain. Think of superstring theories and the like!"
				"But this movie goes too far; it wants us to believe our
					consciousness creates reality, which is conventionally Buddhist, but
					it's bad Buddhist doctrine and bad science together. It's a mare's
					nest of post-Kantian goo that is far to keen on idealism."
				"Well, my Chingachgook, let us show you the good old Berkeleyan
					reality of an English dinner. We'll go to an Indian restaurant for a
					hot curry!"
				"Not to go on about it," replies Ambrose, "but I was confused by the
					discourse on addiction104 in the film. What did
					you think of that?"
				"Bah!" Vyvyan expostulates. We are told by that Elke Sommer
					look-alike with beautiful skin and blue eyeshadow105 that everything we like or dislike is an addiction, but if
					we take a hot bath, we are transformed and can throw away our anxiety
					medications."
				"They should rather have said," agrees Cyril, "that anti-depressants
					are a logical outcome of theories that brain chemicals and electrical
					connections among neurons are the seat of emotional reactions of
					delight and distress. Readjustment of those electro chemicals is a
					perfectly marvelous course to take, and even more so-a fortiori-- if
					consciousness is all somehow quantum-based addiction chemistry?"
				The Bentley pulls up on Finchley Road, in front of a popular Indian
					eatery, The Indologist. "Let's eat! My addicted cells (another
					falsehood that the cell is the basic unit of consciousness) want food
					and a nice drinky."
				59 Queer Crimes and Gay Globalization
				
				"Look at this proposal," I said to Foucault's nephew (see Chap 11).
					"I'd like you to comment on my ideas for the class I am teaching at
					the Quan Yin Transgendered Bodhisattva Correspondence School and
					OnLine University, Inc, S.A."
				
				"OK," replied Marcel, but I warn you I have a perverse outlook on
					these topics."
				
				
				QUEER CRIME AND GAY GLOBALISM
				
				Much of the life of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender,
					genderqueer and intersex persons has been illegal, and this illegality
					has been a constituent factor in the development of new sub-cultures,
					economies and geographies. This course will examine some of the ways
					that non/anti-normative sexual desire has created new modes of being
					and responded to the Law that seeks to channel desire into acceptable
					activities. Prostitution, pornography, inter-generational sex, drug
					use, unsafe sex, sexual activity in public or private are "crimes"
					said to characterize "queer" life. We will attempt to look at the
					behaviors and beliefs of persons seeking sexual and emotional
					connections and their outcomes in modes of being that both create
					shared subjectivities and build institutions. These institutions have
					challenged the structures of economic and social life, with resulting
					transformation and incorporation into the globalization of the
					marketplace. Queer outlaws are followed by LGBT entrepreneurs.
				
				We will read from marxian and freudian commentators on queer desires
					and queer cultures, including contemporaries like Foucault, Butler,
					Bersani, Wittig, Beck Also, we examine the documentation of queer
					legality and criminality in such works as Times
						Square Red, Times Square Blue, Queer Diasporas, The Social
						Construction of a Gay Drug, Resentment, The Crystal Diary, and Macho
						Sluts. In addition, students will participate in original
					research on sexual subcultures in this city and in other parts of the
					world. Music, art, fashion, electronic communication and self-help
					(among other processes) will be considered as QLGBT strategies to
					create their lives and resist oppression..
				
				Topics to be covered (partial list, needs expansion)
				Crime and sin
				Genderqueerness as crime
				Non-hetero marriage as crime
				AIDS as crime, public health as surveillance
				Crimes in countries, cultures outside the US
				Sexual tourism and gay travel business
				Disco and the record business
				Movies and tv
				Pharmaceutical drug therapies and patent laws
				Gay & lesbian jobs
				Disability and work under the table,
				Repentance strategies-AA, NA
				New social places, non-places on the Internet
				Protest movements and gay parades
				Techno vs. deep house
				Queer Punk
				Gender change, laws and violence
				Domestic violence
				Expulsion of queer youth
				Proportion of illegal stuff in economy
				War on Drugs impact
				Zoning laws
				
				"Look here, Mr. Philosopher," said Marcel. "I will give you a whole
					lecture on the phenomenon of Gay Crystal, about which I, as an
					advanced European in touch with the latest drug-resistant AIDS scare,
					know something from my frequent and promiscuous contacts with New
					Yorkers and Los Angelenos. Consider the following an outline of my
					talk:
				General use of crystal
				Use of crystal for sex
				Communication via sex lines and internet
				Use of crystal for clubs, etc
				Club scene
				Club fashion
				Advertising
				Health Issues
				
				"And then I will perform a disquisition on the Gay Circuit Party,
					touching on
				Employment: DJs, bartenders, dancers, waiters, actors, singers, etc.
				Products
				National centers, travel
				International
				Impact on locals
				Impact of locals on circuit
				
				"What do you make of that, Mr. Philosopher?"
				"As always, Marcel, I am impressed by your perspicuity," I had to
					reply.
				"And," added my addled friend, "I have a whole idea about the history
					of queer culture. How's this?
				Class Proposal Queer Cultures of the 60s and 70s
				
				In this multimedia course, we will examine the Lesbian, Gay,
					Bisexual, Transgender--Queer cultural efflorescence that is dated from
					the street riots of 1969 around the Stonewall Inn in New York. The
					origins of this cultural movement in Cold War economics and politics
					and the emergence of vibrant social movements of African-Americans,
					Latinos, Women and youth can be glimpsed through documentary film and
					the "underground" press of the times: Chicago Seed, Berkeley Barb, RAT, and East Village Other.
				
				In literary production, specifically gay male writing begins with
					Robert Duncan in his 1949 "Manifesto" and Ginsberg in "Howl;" both
					became icons to 60s gay poets. Most prominent New York poets were
					Frank O'Hara, James Merrill and James Schuyler. Lesbian writers like
					Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton and Muriel Rukeyser were already well
					established, and were joined by feminist/bisexual Beats and emerging
					post-Stonewall writers like Robin Morgan and Audre Lord.
				
				In theater Gay/Lesbian/Transgender writers and performers were
					particularly visible. The high camp of the Theater of the Ridiculous
					and the anti-war hippie rock dramas of the pan-sexual Fugs will be
					looked at in early film and recordings of these performances, as well
					as films by Andy Warhol, whose decidedly "queer" Factory was the most
					significant cultural producer of the second half of the century.
				
				Far from the New York irony of Warhol were the poetry of Duncan, Jack
					Spicer, Judy Grahn and Pat Parker. The gender-smashing antics of the
					Cockettes in San Francisco exemplify the collectively-made, often
					anonymous projects that contributed to the development of the
					gathering as an art form--beyond the Happening lay the Be-In and drag
					ritual. Writer/performers and film artists necessary to understanding
					this aesthetic are Jack Smith, Kenneth Anger, and documentarians of
					demonstrations and "tribal" gatherings of groups like the Gay
					Liberation Front. Hundreds of new "queer" writers began their careers
					in the ten-year period 1969-79, a flowering made briefer by the demise
					of many in the AIDS epidemic beginning in 1980.
				
				"C'est admirable!" I told Marcel, anxious to depart before he began
					to act out the films of Warhol. I then wandered off to the Parc
					Luxembourg environment at EuroDisney to enjoy the animatronic birds.
				
				
				
			
			
				1 Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray
			
			
				2 Jean Piaget, The Origins of Intelligence in the Child. Routledge
					and Kegan Paul. London (1956) (paraphrased) and David Bohm (q.v.)
			
			
				3 Piaget
			
			
				4 Judy Grahn, She Who (excerpt) in The Work of A Common Woman
					(Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press) 1978.
			
			
				5 Karin Ashley et. al for SDS, "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know
					Which Way the Wind Blows" New Left Notes, June 18, 1969
			
			
				6 Weather Underground Organization, "New Morning-Changing Weather,"
					(1970)
			
			
				7 Velvet Underground, "I'm Set Free." The Velvet Underground
				(1969)
			
			
				8 Timothy Leary, Flashbacks: A personal and Cultural History of an
					Era New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1990
			
			
				9 Charles Fourier, Theory of Social Organization (New York: C. P.
					Somerby, 1876).
			
			
				10 Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, R.H.M. Elwes, trans., (Amherst:
					Prometheus Books) 1989.
			
			
				11 David Bohm, The Essential David Bohm, edited by Lee Nichol (NY
					& London:Routledge) 2003
			
			
				12 Henry James, "The Private Life" in The Figure in the Carpet and
					other stories (London: Penguin) 1986.
			
			
				13 NYT, October 29, 2002, "A New View Of Our Universe: Only One of
					Many"
				By DENNIS OVERBYE (NYT)
			
			
				14 Jean Baudrillard, The Mirror of Production,
					Telos Press, St. Louis, 1975
			
			
				15 HRH Felix Youssoupoff, Lost Splendor, NY:
					Putnam, 1953.
			
			
				16 Baudrillard
			
			
				17 Karl Marx, Capital
				
			
			
				18 (from "On the Concept of Labor," Telos 16
					(Summer, 1973)
			
			
				19 song taught to birds in Aldous Huxley's Island
				
			
			
				20 Ronald Firbank, Vainglory
			
			
				21 Ferd Eggan. Don't Block the Exits (NY:
					Doofus Self-Publishing) 2005
			
			
				22 Peggy Wood, quoted in Frank DeFord, Big Bill
						Tilden: The Triumphs and the Tragedy (NY: Simon and Schuster)
					1976.
			
			
				23 Martin Heidegger "The Thing" a lecture from 1950 in Poetry, Launguage, Thought, (Harper &
					Row, New York) 1975
			
			
				24 Lenin, of course.
			
			
				25 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Kikacs, Antonio
					Gramsci, C.L.R. James, Mario Tronti, Sergio Bologna, Mariarosa Dalla
					Costa, Antonio Negri, Selma James, trad. melody, elaboration of a
					12-bar blues, ababb rhyme scheme.
			
			
				26 In "Letter to Comrades" of October 15 (28), 1917, Lenin quotes an
					objection to immediate revolution: 'We have no majority among the
					people, and without this condition the uprising is hopeless . . .'
				Lenin retorts, "People who can say this are either distorters of the
					truth or pedants who want an advance guarantee that throughout the
					wole country the Bolshevik Party has received exactly one-half of the
					votes plus one, this they want at all events, without taking the least
					account of the real circumstances of the revolution. History has never
					given such a guarantee, and it is quite unable to give it in any
					revolution. To make such a demand is jeering at the audience, and is
					nothing but a cover to hide one's own flight from reality . . ."
					Quoted in Slavoj Zizek, ed., Revolution at the
					Gates (London:Verso) 2002.
			
			
				27 Ndabaningi Sithole Remanded In Prison (PANA.
					17 February, 1996)
				HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA) - Trial of the leader of the Ndonga faction
					of Zimbabwe African Union ZANU (NDONGA), Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole,
					facing charges of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe was
					on Saturday adjourned to April 23. The opposition leader, who is on
					100,000 zimdollars (11, 000 USD) bail, is facing two charges under the
					Law and Order (Maintenance) Act for recruiting people to undergo
					military training and conspiracy to engage in sabotage. He is accused
					of personally picking the spot for the abortive attempt to kill
					President Mugabe as he passed in his motorcade on August 4 last
				year.
			
			
				28 Peanut Butter Stew from Zimbabwe (Dovi) serves
					4-6
				
				2 medium onions, finely chopped 
				2 green peppers, chopped
				2 tablespoons butter
				1 chicken, cut into pieces
				2 cloves garlic, finely sliced and crushed
				3 to 4 fresh tomatoes
				6 to 8 fresh okra, seeded and chopped
				1 teaspoon salt & 1⁄2 teaspoon pepper 
				6 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
				1 chili pepper or 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 
				1⁄2 pound spinach or pumpkin leaves
				*In a large stew pot over medium heat, sauté onions in butter until
					golden brown. Add garlic, salt and hot peppers.
				*Stir for 2 or 3 minutes then add green peppers, okra and chicken.
					Brown the chicken.
				*When all the chicken pieces are brown on every side, mash tomatoes
					with a fork and mix them into the stew, along with about 2 cups water. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10
					minutes.
				*Thin the peanut butter with a few spoons of hot broth and add half
					the resulting paste to the pot. Simmer until the meat is well-cooked.
				*In a separate pot, boil spinach or pumpkin leaves for several
					minutes until tender. Drain and toss with the remainder of the peanut
					paste. Serve stew and greens side by side.
				Recipe from The Africa News Cookbook, by the
					Africa News Service, Inc., 1985, p. 44
			
			
				29 Listen to Healing Tree: The Best of Stella
						Chiweshe.
				"Stella Rambisai Chiweshe Nekati is a woman warrior who defied the
					traditional gender roles of her native Zimbabwe by learning to play
					the mbira, a thumb piano whose ritual connection to the ancestral
					spirits dates back to the 15th century. More than two decades of
					international recording and concert performances have earned Chiweshe
					the title "Queen of Mbira," a distinction which led to this "best of"
					compilation, her first CD on a stateside label. Split between lulling
					unplugged tracks (for dual mbiras, vocals, and percussion) and lively
					worldbeat pieces (with that curious Afro-pop mix of upbeat rhythm,
					buoyant melody, and trenchant lyrics), the disc proffers multi-leveled
					music for enthusiasts of both contemporary and folkloric song forms.
					Cyclical motifs combine earthy singing and translucent instrumental
					syncopation to create a hypnotic sound of power and ancientness."
					review by Sam Prestianni
			
			
				30 Ndlovu is now a part-time AIDS educator, who joined Ethan Zohn,
					the million-dollar winner of Survivor: Africa, in a prevention program
					called Grassroots Soccer for boys in Harare. Never mind that Mugabe
					thinks gay persons should be executed: in Africa, gay sex is somehow
					irrelevant to AIDS.
			
			
				31 IMF dumps Zim (Zimbabwe Independent, Dec 5,
					2003) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday began
					measures to expel Zimbabwe as a member of the fund, another blow for
					beleaguered President Robert Mugabe already suspended from the
					Commonwealth. The IMF's decision-making executive board said Zimbabwe
					had "not actively cooperated" with the fund and had been in arrears on
					loan repayments since February 2001.
				
					Commonwealth on trial, by Dumisani Muleya (Zim,
					Independent, Dec. 5, 2003)
				ZIMBABWE will be directly in the firing line at the Commonwealth
					Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) which opens in Abuja, Nigeria,
					today without President Robert Mugabe who has been barred from the
					summit. With political temperatures rising dramatically over
					Zimbabwe's suspension, the country's crisis is expected to dominate
					Chogm and test to the limit the 54-member organisation's mettle in
					dealing with issues of democracy and electoral conduct.
			
			
				32 All quotations from David M. Halperin, Saint=Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography , Oxford University
					Press: 1995All
			
			
				33 Critical-Political Comments
				"Regarding the Jefferson Airplane, it's important to remember the
					atmosphere of the times. It's important to remember 1968. In 1968,
					highway patrolmen opened fire on black students from South Carolina
					State University who were marching to protest segregation at a bowling
					alley. They killed 3, wounded 37. Riots began in Detroit and Newark.
					Robert Kennedy was assassinated. An increasingly unpopular war was
					raging which would eventually leave 54,000 American soldiers dead. Big
					Brother (the government's version) was looking over people's
					shoulders: a staffer on the National Security Council was responsible
					for monitoring every anti-Vietnam war speech in the Congressional
					Record. American officials were trying to put narcotic agents in the
					Army, even though amphetamines were widely distributed as stimulants
					to G.I.s. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not only wire-tapped, but
					harassed by the FBI with cryptic warnings and unveiled threats. When
					King was murdered, fires spread to within two blocks of the White
					House. 65,000 troops saw riot duty across the United States. Columbia
					University was taken over by students for six days - an action
					repeated across the nation during the next year. In Chicago, the 1968
					Democratic presidential convention was on its way to town, but
					everyone was on strike - electrical workers, telephone installers, bus
					and taxi drivers. The convention itself would be ringed with
					electrified barbed wire; the security force had at its disposal
					flame-throwers and bazookas. Even though (because?) one in six
					demonstrators in Chicago may have been undercover cops, the police
					brutality that resulted was so extreme it changed people's political
					emphasis overnight. In California, Ronald Reagan would soon be warning
					of bloodbaths. More riots, the Weathermen bombings, the murder of
					students at Jackson State, the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial and much
					more were still to come. There was momentousness, paranoia, and danger
					on the national scene. Across America rednecks and warmongers were
					punching out people who grew their hair long. A feeling of shared
					oppression was widespread."
				A SF Chronicle of Music
				
			
			
				34 Karin Ashley, Bill Ayers, Barnardine Dohrn, John Jacobs, Jeff
					Jones, Gerry Long, Howie Machtinger, Jim Mellen, Terry Robbins, Mark
					Rudd and Steve Tappis, "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way
					the Wind Blows" New Left Notes, June 18,
				1969
			
			
				35 National Geographic, 1961.
				Edom: (red) the name Edom was given to Esau, the first-born son of
					Isaac and twin brother of Jacob, when he sold his birthright to the
					latter for a meal of lentil pottage. The country which the Lord
					subsequently gave to Esau was hence called the country of Edom and his
					descendants were called Edomites.
				Esau's bitter hatred to his brother Jacob for fraudulently obtaining
					his blessing appears to have been inherited by his latest posterity.
					The Edomites peremptorily refused to permit the Israelites to pass
					through their land. For a period of 400 years we hear no more of the
					Edomites. They were then attacked and defeated by Saul and some forty
					years later by David. In the reign of Jehoshaphat (BC 914) the
					Edomites attempted to invade Israel but failed. They joined
					Nebuchadnezzar when that king besieged Jerusalem. For their cruelty at
					this time they were fearfully denounced by the later prophets. After
					this they settled in southern Palestine and for more than four
					centuries continued to prosper. But during the warlike rule of the
					Maccabees they were again completely subdued and even forced to
					conform to Jewish laws and rites and submit to the government of
					Jewish prefects. The Edomites were now incorporated with the Jewish
					nation. They were idolaters. Their habits were singular. The Horites,
					their predecessors in Mount Seir, were as their name implies
					troglodytes or dwellers in caves; and the Edomites seem to have
					adopted their dwellings as well as their country. Everywhere we meet
					with caves and grottos hewn in the soft sandstone strata. .....
					Hypertext Webster Gateway (Easton's 1897 Bible
						Dictionary)
			
			
				36 Some Mathematical Founders:
				Yi Xing (683-727)
				Alcuin of York (c. 735-804)
				Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazari (fl. c. 771)
				Leo the Mathematician (c. 790-post 869)
				Govindaswami (c. 800-850)
				Mahavira (Mahaviracharya) (c. 850)
				Abu `Abd Allah Mohammad ibn Jabir al-Battani (Albatenius) (c. 858)
				Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad Tarkhan ibn Awzalagh al-Farabi
					(Alpharabius) (c. 870-c. 950
				
					Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 15 volumes.
					Edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Scribner, New York, 1970-1978,
					with later additions.
			
			
				37 Rumors that Maslow was sodomized by her father have never been
					proved.
			
			
				38 "Jam, n. archaic gay term for heterosexual: jam vs. fruit" The Queen's Lexicon,
			
			
				39 Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the term used to refer to the
					removal of part, or all, of the female genitalia. The most severe form
					is infibulation, also known as pharaonic circumcision. An estimated
					15% of all mutilations in Africa are infibulations. The procedure
					consists of clitoridectomy (where all, or part of, the clitoris is
					removed), excision (removal of all, or part of, the labia minora), and
					cutting of the labia majora to create raw surfaces, which are then
					stitched or held together in order to form a cover over the vagina
					when they heal. A small hole is left to allow urine and menstrual
					blood to escape. In some less conventional forms of infibulation, less
					tissue is removed and a larger opening is left.
				Girls undergoing the procedure have varying degrees of knowledge
					about what will happen to them. Sometimes the event is associated with
					festivities and gifts. Girls are exhorted to be brave. Where the
					mutilation is part of an initiation rite, the festivities may be major
					events for the community. Usually only women are allowed to be
					present.
				Sometimes a trained midwife will be available to give a local
					anaesthetic. In some cultures, girls will be told to sit beforehand in
					cold water, to numb the area and reduce the likelihood of bleeding.
					More commonly, however, no steps are taken to reduce the pain. The
					girl is immobilized, held, usually by older women, with her legs open.
					When infibulation takes place, stitches may be used to hold the two
					sides of the labia majora together, and the legs may be bound together
					for up to 40 days. Antiseptic powder may be applied, or, more usually,
					pastes - containing herbs, milk, eggs, ashes or dung - which are
					believed to facilitate healing. The girl may be taken to a specially
					designated place to recover where, if the mutilation has been carried
					out as part of an initiation ceremony, traditional teaching is
					imparted. Amnesty International, 1998
			
			
				40 Heraclitus, 5th C BCE, became a misanthrope, leaving the city,
					living in the mountains off herbs and plants; all citations from
					Jonathan Barnes, ed. & trans., Early Greek
						Philosophy, 2nd revised ed. London: Penguin, 2001.
			
			
				41 David Bohm. The Qualitative Nature of
					Infinity (1971)
			
			
				42 The AKC would not recognize these as purebred offspring of Merle,
					as they would affect the stability of Maltese as a breed. Merle
					himself, transmigratory soul unbound by genetics, has personally
					appeared at Westminster.
				It is also worth noting here, by the way, that the rumors of an
					incestuous and bestial relationship between Peabody and Sherman (who
					are, after all, nephews or cousins, and not direct-line relations) are
					not supported by any available evidence. Readers will be aware of
					Peabody's seminal role in the promulgation of the postmodern theory of
					history, wherein the past and present cultures of all times and places
					are ransacked for information and entertainment. Merle has made no
					published comment on these views; his is a more Schopenhauer-like
					compassionate pessimism regarding human affairs .
			
			
				43 John Clare (1793 - 1864) "The Fallen Elm"
			
			
				44 To Kevatta. Translated from the Pali by
					Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
				Sutta (Teaching, in Pali) is the same as the Sanskrit word Sutra;
					this and many other Suttas are part of the Pali Canon, sayings
					attributed to Gautama Buddha, written in gold on palm leaves around
					the 4th C BCE and kept in Sri Lanka-- what some view as the oldest
					preserved books, and all agree are some of the most beautiful books in
					the world.
			
			
				45 Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The
						Birth of the Prison, New York, 1995, Vintage Books, Random
					House.
			
			
				46 "Mr. Lee committed suicide to save the farmers," said An Sung
					Hyun, 65, a neighbor. "He sacrificed himself for farmers like me."
				That sentiment is echoed in a new banner that greets drivers as they
					enter Jangsu. "The late Lee Kyung Hae, patriot and hero, we will
					follow your goal," it reads. "We strongly oppose W.T.O.
					globalization." To protect farmers, South Korea has tariffs of over
					100 percent on 142 farm products - consumers here pay about four times
					American prices for rice - helping support six million farmers in a
					nation of 47 million people.
				But South Korea's real money is made selling cars, ships and
					cellphones around the world. To keep markets open for its economy, the
					world's 12th largest, South Korea has recently made concessions on
					food imports, in bilateral talks and in preliminary negotiations in
					the W.T.O. With each concession, life gets a little harder for the
					farmers.
				"It is not hard to guess why he chose to terminate his life," said La
					Jung Han, an official in Seoul at the the Korean Advanced Farmers
					Federation, a group Mr. Lee headed for many years. "Probably, the main
					motivation was despair." It was "a despair deeply imbedded in the
					conditions of the farmers, the agriculture industry and the rural
					communities."
				From his wife's grave, Mr. Lee's view would have included his modest
					one-story brick house and his experimental 40-acre farm. In the 1970's
					it was an effort by a college graduate from Seoul, much commented
					upon, to demonstrate how farmers could survive and compete despite
					declining prices for their products.
				"Even now the land is being abandoned," An Sung Hyun, said, pointing
					out paddies abandoned across the valley floor. "If we import more
					food, more land will be abandoned."
				"Parents who are farming, don't want their children to do farming,"
					he said, speaking in a room filled with farmers. "There is no hope.
					They cannot get any benefits from farming."
				"Frankly speaking, I am really, really proud of him," his daughter
					Goh Wun said. "Because he sacrificed himself not for himself, but for
					the nation." NY Times, Sept. 16, 2003.
			
			
				47 "And the practice of calling on psychiatric espertise, which is
					widespread…means that the sentence, even if it is always formulated in
					terms of legal punishment, implies, more or less obscurely, judgments
					of normality, attributions of causality, assessments of possible
					changes, anticipations as to the offender's future." Foucault,
				ibid.
			
			
				48 A.G.S. Kariyawasam. Buddhist Ceremonies and
						Rituals of Sri Lanka The Wheel Publication 1995
			
			
				49 Ibid
			
			
				50 Patrick Moore, Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the
						Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality (Boston: Beacon
					Press, 2004)
			
			
				51 Ranier Marie Rilke, Duino Elegies
				
			
			
				52 Dubai
				March 4, 2004
				By GARY MILHOLLIN and KELLY MOTZ
				WASHINGTON
				
				America's relations with Pakistan and several other Asian countries
					have been rocked by the discovery of the vast smuggling network run by
					the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Unfortunately, one
					American ally at the heart of the scandal, Dubai in the United Arab
					Emirates, seems to be escaping punishment despite its role as the key
					transfer point in Dr. Khan's atomic bazaar.
				
				Why ship through Dubai? Because it may be the easiest place in the
					world to mask the real destination of cargo. Consider how the
					Malaysian government is making the case for the innocence of its
					manufacturing company. "No document was traced that proved" the
					company "delivered or exported the said components to Libya,"
					according to the country's inspector general of police. The real
					destination, he said, "was outside the knowledge" of the producer. One
					can be certain that if the Khan ring's European suppliers are ever
					tracked down, they will offer a similar explanation.
				
				Dubai provides companies and governments a vital asset: automatic
					deniability. Its customs agency even brags that its policy on
					re-exporting "enables traders to transit their shipments through Dubai
					without any hassles." Next to Dubai's main port is the Jebel Ali free
					trade zone, a haven for freewheeling international companies. Our
					organization has documented 264 firms from Iran and 44 from rogue
					regimes like Syria and North Korea.
			
			
				53 Poem found written on the bathroom wall in a rest stop near
				Bonn.
			
			
				54 from Histoire de Langued'oc, prepared by a Languedoc separatist
					earthworks collective,, Les Cathares-Fourieristes DSLReclam
			
			
				55 John Wasmod of Homburg's Tractatus contra hereticos, beckardos,
					lulhardos, et swestriones, 1396, quoted in Robert S. Lerner, The
					Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages, U of Notre Dame
					Press, 1972.
			
			
				56 [Verbal description] sins against nature in attempting to tell the
					ear what ought to be told to the eye. . .[Poetry proceeds] by
					mentioning the individual componehtsw of beauty, and these are
					separated from one another by time, so that time itself interposes a
					forgetting between them . .The poet is unable to construct that
					harmonic total effect which is formed . . . through conjoint presence
					. .one part procees out of t he other successively; the succeeding one
					does not arise without its predecessor dying.
				Quotations from L Da Vinci's Tratatto, taken
					from Leo Steinberg's Leonardo's Incessant Last
						Supper, 2001, NY: ZONE Books, p27 & n14.
			
			
				57 Historia de Sancta Maria Magdalena, Iacobus de Voragine (A.D.
					1230-1298)
				[...] Cum autem quadam die Maria Magdalena praedicaret, praedictus
					princeps dixit ei: "Putas posse defendere fidem, quam praedicas!" Cui
					illa: "Equidem illam defendere praesto sum, utpote quotidianis
					miraculis et praedicatione magistri mei Petri, qui Romae praesidet,
					roboratam." Cui princeps cum coniuge dixit: "Ecce dictis tuis per
					omnia obtemperare parati sumus, si a Deo, quem praedicas, nobis filium
					impetrabis. - "Propter hoc"' inquit Magdalena, "non remanebit."
				
				Tunc beata Maria pro ipsis Dominum exoravit, ut sibi filium concedere
					dignaretur. Cuius preces Dominus exaudivit et matrona illa concepit.
					Tunc vir eius coepit velle proficisci ad Petrum, ut probaret, si, ut
					Magdalena de Christo praedicaverat, sic veritas se haberet. Cui uxor
					dixit: "Quid est, domine! Putasne sine me proficisci! Absit. Te enim
					recedente recedam; te veniente veniam; te quiescente quiescam." Cui
					vir ait:'Non sic fiet, domina, etenim cum sis gravida et in mari sint
					infinita pericula, de facili periclitari posses. Domi igitur quiesces
					et possessionibus nostris curam impendes."
				
				Et contra illa instabat femineum nec mutans femina morem et cum
					lacrimis pedibus eius obvoluta, quod petebat, tandem obtinuit. Maria
					ergo humeris eorum signum crucis imposuit, ne eos antiquus hostis in
					aliquo itinere impediret. Navem igitur omnibus necessaris copiose
					onerantes, ceteia, quae habebant, in Mariae Magdalenae custodia
					relinquentes proficisci coeperunr. Iamque unius diei et noctis cursu
					consummato coepit nimium mare intumescere, ventus flare, ita ut omnes
					et maxime matrona gravida et debilis tam saeva inundatione fluctuum
					quassati gravissimis angustiis urgerentur, in tantum, quod in eam
					subito dolor partus irruit et inter angustias ventris et pressuras
					temporis filium parturiens exspiravit. Natus igitur puerulus
					palpitabat et mamillarum maternarum quaerens solacia lamentabiles
					dabat vagitus. Proh dolor! Et natus est infans vivus et matricida
					effectus. Mori eum convenit, cum non sit, qui vitae tribuat alimentum.
				
				Quid faciet peregrinus, et cum uxorem mortuam videat et puerum
					vagientem querulis vocibus matris mammam appetentem! Lamentabatur
					plurimum et dicebat: "Heu miser, quid facies! Filium habere
					desiderasti, et matrem cum filio perdidisti." Nautae acclamabant
					dicentes: "Proiciatur in mare hoc corpus, antequam insimul pereamus.
					Quamdiu enim nobiscum fuerit, haec quassatio non cessabit." Et cum
					corpus appredendissent, ut illud in mare iactarent: "Parcite" inquit
					peregrinus, "parcite, et si nec mihi nec matri parcere volueritis,
					misereamini saltem parvuli vagientis. Sinite modicum et sustinete, si
					forte mulier prae dolore in exstasi posita adhuc valeat respirare." Et
					ecce non procul a navi quidam collis apparuit. Quo viso utilius esse
					credidit corpus et puerulum illuc deferri, quam marinis beluis ad
					devorandum dari et vix a nautis prece et pretio extorsit, ut illic
					applicarent. Cumque illic prae duritia foveam non potuisset effodere,
					in secretiori parte collis, chlamyde supposita, corpus collocavit et
					puerulum mammis eius apponens cum lacrimis ait: "O Maria Magdalena, ad
					perditionis meae cumulum Massiliae applicuisti: Cur infelix
					admonitione tua hoc iter arripui! Petiistine Deum, ut mulier mea hac
					de causa conciperet et periret! Ecce enim concepit et pariendo mortem
					subiit. Conceptus est natus, ut pereat, cum non sit, qui enutriat.
					Ecce, quod prece tua obtinui, tibi enim omnia mea commendavi Deoque
					tuo commendo. Si potens es, memor sis animae matris, et prece tua
					misereatur, ne pereat natus." Tunc chlamyde sua corpus cum puero
					circumquaque operuit et postmodum navem conscendit. Cumque ad Petrum
					venisset, Petrus ei obvius fuit, qui viso signo crucis in umero suo,
					qui esset et unde veniret, sciscitatus est. Qui omnia sibi per ordinem
					narravit, cui Petrus: "Pax tibi fiat, bene venisti et utili consiiio
					credidisti. Nec moleste feras, si mulier tua dormit, si parvulus cum
					ea quiescit. Potens enim est Dominus, cui vult, dona dare, data
					auferre, ablata restituere, et maerorem tuum in gaudium commutare."
					Petrus autem ipsum in Hierosolymam duxit et omnia loca, in quibus
					Christus praedicavit et miracula fecit, locum etiam, in quo passus est
					et in quo caelos adscendit, eidem ostendit. Cumque de fide fuisset
					instructus diligenter a Petro, biennii spatio iam elapso navem
					adscendit repatriare curans. Cum igitur navigarent, Domino disponente
					iuxta collem, in quo corpus uxoris cum puero positum fuerat,
					pervenerunt. Qui prece et pretio eos ibi ad applicandum induxit.
				
				Puerulus autem ibidem a Maria Magdalena incolumis conservatus
					frequenter ad litus maris procedebat et ibidem, ut puerorum moris est,
					cum lapillis et glareis ludere solitus erat. Et, cum applicuisset,
					vidit puerulum more solito in litore maris cum lapillis ludentem, et
					quid esset, admirari non desinens, de scapha exsiliit. Quem videns
					parvulus, cum numquam tale quid vidisset, expavit et ad solita matris
					recurrens ubera occulte sub chlamyde latitabat. Peregrinus vero, ut
					manifestius videret, illuc accessit et puerulum pulcherrimum matris
					ubera sugentem invenit et accipiens puerum ait: "0 beata Maria
					Magdalena, quam felix essem, quam mihi cuncta prospera advenissent, si
					mulier respiraret et mecum repatriare valeret. Scio equidem, scio et
					procul dubio credo, quod tu, quae puerum dedisti et in hac rupe per
					biennium pavisti, poteris matrem suam prece tua pristinae restituere
					sanitati."
				
				Ad haec verba mulier respiravit et quasi a somno evigilans ait:
					"Magni meriti es, beata Maria Magdalena, et gloriosa, quae in partus
					mei pressuris obstetricis implevisti officium et in omnibus
					necessitatibus ancillae servitium explesti." Quo audito peregrinus
					admirans ait: "Vivisne uxor mea dilecta?" Cui illa: "Vivo equidem et
					nunc primo de peregrinatione, de qua et tu venisti, venio. Et sicut
					beatus Petrus te Hierosolymam duxit et omnia loca, in quibus Christus
					passus est, mortuus et sepultus, et alia plura loca ostendit, sic et
					ego una cum beata Maria Magdalena duce et comite vobiscum fui et
					conspecta memoriae commendavi." Et incipiens loca omnia, in quibus
					Christus passus est, et miracula, quae viderat, adeo plene explicuit,
					ut nec in aliquo deviaret.
				
				Tunc peregrinus recepta coniuge et puero navem laetus conscendit et
					paulo post Massiliae portibus applicuerunt et ingressi invenerunt
					beatam Mariam Magdalenam cum suis discipulis praedicantem. Et eius
					pedibus cum lacrimis provoluti omnia, quae iis acciderant, narraverunt
					et a beato Maximino sacrum baptisma susceperunt. Tunc in civitate
					Massiliae omnium idolorum templa destruentes Christi ecclesias
					construxerunt et beatum Lazarum in eiusdem civitatis episcopum
					unanimiter elegerunt. Tandem divino nutu ad Aquensem civitatem
					venerunt et populum illum ad fidem Christi per multa miracula
					adduxerunt. [...]
			
			
				58 John Wasmod of Homburg's Tractatus contra hereticos, beckardos,
					lulhardos, et swestriones, 1396, quoted in Robert S. Lerner, The
					Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages, U of Notre Dame
					Press, 1972.
			
			
				59 >>Torture
				>>The United States Underground
				>>by Silvia Baraldini
				>>
				>>(Silvia remains under house arrest in Italy under
					terms of her
				>>repatriation as a US political prisoner)
				>>http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps+pows/silvia.html
				
				>>
				>>from Il Manifesto, May 11, 2004, p. 10 (translated)
				>>
				>>
				>>
				>>Faced with the catastrophic reality of the tortures
					inflicted on
				>>Iraqi citizens by U.S. and British occupation forces,
					the defense of
				>>the two governments has been centered on the
					identification of the
				>>"bad apples" responsible for what could otherwise be
					characterized
				>>as exceptional episodes -- episodes extraneous to the
					democratic
				>>systems of the two countries. Since The New Yorker
					published the
				>>first images, we have been inundated by interviews
					with inhabitants
				>>of the rural towns from which the soldiers accused of
					the torture
				>>originate. Full of condmenation and dismay, these
					interviews
				>>attempt to reassure us of the deep democratic
					sentiment that
				>>animates Americans.
				>>
				>>Curiously, not a single interview has appeared with
					that part of the
				>>U.S. population that would be able to testify to the
					torture, abuses
				>>of power, sexual violence and conditioning that it
					has personally
				>>suffered. I am speaking of the prisoners, both
					political and
				>>social, who have served their sentences in the
					special sections of
				>>Marion, Illinois; Florence, Colorado; Pelican Bay,
					California;
				>>Lexington, Kentucky; and Alderson, West Virginia; to
					name some of
				>>the most miserable known. If a journalist had tracked
					down Rafael
				>>Cancel Miranda, he would be able to testify that in
					the
				>>not-so-distant years of the 1970s, in the
					undergrounds of Marion,
				>>prisoners were handcuffed to walls and left for
					hours. Frank "Big
				>>Black" Smith would be able to recount how all of the
					prisoners of
				>>Attica, at the end of their rebellion, were stripped
					nude and forced
				>>to submit while members of the National Guard beat
					them with clubs
				>>and rifles, and how he, himself, an ex-football
					player, was forced
				>>to remain on his feet for interminable hours with a
					football held
				>>beneath his chin, surrounded by soldiers ready to
					beat him if he
				>>dropped it. Samuel Brown would be able to tell us
					about his severe
				>>neck injury that was purposely left untreated as a
					strategy for
				>>softening him before he was interrogated by the FBI.
					And Sekou
				>>Odinga could tell us how, after he was arrested, his
					chest was used
				>>as an ashtray by members of the task force that
					interrogated him.
				>>Alejandrina Torres would be able to tell us about
					himself -- a
				>>Puerto Rican political prisoner later pardoned by
					President Clinton,
				>>who was violated in federal prison in Phoenix,
					Arizona, not with a
				>>broomstick but with the gloved fists of a so-called
					nurse. Or Susan
				>>Rosenberg, who spent two months in the winter of 1988
					without sleep
				>>in a cell of the special unit of Lexington Prison
					where the lights
				>>were turned on every twenty minutes, where the
					curtainless shower is
				>>observed by one of the 21 surveillance cameras of
					that unit, who
				>>experienced the humiliation of having to ask a male
					prison guard for
				>>a tampon every time she needed one. The women
					prisoners in Georgia
				>>state prison and in Dublin federal prison would be
					able to testify
				>>how in prison one can be sexually abused by the same
					individuals who
				>>are supposed to protect you. In Pelican Bay and
					Florence,
				>>journalists would find the prisons upon which
					Guantanamo was
				>>modelled.
				>>
				>>
				>>The reality that is inexorably emerging from Iraqi
					prisons should
				>>not surprise us. For years, Amnesty International,
					Human Rights
				>>Watch, and the American Civil Liberties Union have
					all denounced the
				>>analagous conditions that exist in special prisons in
					the United
				>>States.
				>>
			
			
				60 Richard Bruce Nugent, Gay Rebel of the Harlem
						Renaissance. Thomas H. Wirth, ed. Duke U Press, 2002.
			
			
				61 Ven. Khenchen Thrangu, Rinpoche, transcribed by Gaby Hollman,
					translated from Tibetan by Ken Holmes, Namo Buddha Seminar, Glasgow,
					Scotland, 1993.
				
			
			
				62 Bohr, Heisenberg and Mermin citations from Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality Beyond the New Physics: An Excursion
						into Metaphysics and the Meaning of Reality, NY: Anchor Press,
					1987.
			
			
				63 Freidrich A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and
					Liberty, vol. 1, London: Routledge, 1982.
			
			
				64 All quotations from S. Rheinfahrt, My Struggles
						Against Fascism and Eurocommunism, as told to Joseph Jamal,.
					Abner Cransky, trans. Berlin: Falsus Verlag, 1994.
			
			
				65 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow took this name for Lake Superior from
					Henry Schoolcraft, amateur ethnologist and fabulator of Menominee and
					Chippewa tales.
			
			
				66 . 1. A subcortical group of nuclei in the forebrain which serves a.
					the limbic system, b. the autonomic nervous
					system (see FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT), and c. the
					endocrine system. 2. A thumbnail-sized neuro
					structure which organizes basic nonverbal responses, such as aggression, 
						anger
					, sexuality, and 
						fear
					.
				
					Evolution I. The hypothalamus has deep
					evolutionary roots in the chemical sense of smell
				
					Evolution II. As the forebrain's main
					chemical-control area, the hypothalamus regulates piscine adrenal medullae, chemical-releasing glands
					which, in living fish, consist of two lines of cells near the kidneys.
					The adrenal medullae pump adrenaline into the
					bloodstream, from where it effects every cell in the fish's body. (
						N.B.
					: In humans, adrenaline speeds up body
					movements, strengthens muscle contractions, and
						energizes the activity of spinal-cord paleocircuits.)
				
					RESEARCH REPORTS: 1.
					Pathways involved in oral and genital functions "converge in that part
					of the hypothalamus in which electrical stimulation results in angry and defensive
					behaviour" (MacLean 1973:44). 2. In higher
					vertebrates, the olfactory system and the hypophysis [i.e., the
					pituitary gland (which is linked to the hypothalamus)] "are derived
					from a single patch of embryonic [neuro]ectoderm" (Stoddart 1990:13
				Copyright © 1998 - 2001 (David B. Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)
			
			
				67 H. W. Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha
				
			
			
				68 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Idomeneo, re di Creta. 1781. libretto by
					Giambattista Varesco, Los Angeles Opera, September 9, 2004. Placido
					Domingo, Idomeneo. Adriana Damato, Ilia. Kent Nagano, Conductor.
					(orig. Flanders Opera, Belgium, dir. By David McVicar)
				
			
			
				69 Version 2, 9/11/04 (former version titled No Matter Who Wins,
					9/06/04)
			
			
				70 Memo to other leftists like me: read Multitude. It's irritating in its generalities and sometimes too
					affectless, but it helps. It helped me realize that I can't rely on
					old concepts like US imperialism to understand what's going on. The
					blame for attacks on US targets is not just on the US. The changes in
					the global world order are not just a super-imperialism of one
					super-power, but a global contestation for power between the
					trans-national empire of capital and what Negri and Hardt call the
					multitude. It makes sense out of things that can otherwise be
					addressed only through righteous but ignorant indignation.
			
			
				71 This country, like Rome under the lesser
						Caesars, may send out soldiers for 400 years or so, but it will
						decline into a third-rate power. In its decline it will look like
						the England of the 20st Century, holding on to
						coalitions of the willing, fighting border wars continually,
						striking out with money and technology at competitors and friends,
						bewildered that others don't like us, and disappointed at our
						seeming failure to keep hope alive. Our overweening pride, inflated
						by the dollars everyone in the world clamored for, has made our
						vision too dim to notice that we, also like Imperial Romans or
						Brits, are no longer the vital, ingenious frontierspeople we liked
						to imagine ourselves.
				
				
			
			
				72 "Liebst du um Schönheit," Clara Weick Schumann (1891-1896)
				setting of If you love for beauty, by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) 
				
			
			
				73 -Robert Schumann came to live and study with Clara Wieck's father
					in 1830, and asked permission to marry Clara in 1837; Wieck objected,
					and did all he could to prevent the wedding before Clara's 21st
					birthday when she would be legally able without his consent; Robert
					and Clara filed a lawsuit, and won, but out of spite went ahead and
					married the day before her birthday, September 12, 1840. 
				-They first lived in Leipzig where they both taught in the
					Conservatory there; they moved to Dresden in 1844, to Düsseldorf in
					1850. 
				-Their children were: Marie (1841-1929), Elise (1843-1928), Julie
					(1845-72), Emil (1846-47), Ludwig (1848-99), Ferdinand (1849-91),
					Eugenie (1851-1938), Felix (1854-79). 
				-Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) met the Schumanns in 1853, and remained
					a dear friend of both while they lived. -Robert's mental health was
					poor, and following a suicide attempt in 1854, he was committed to the
					asylum at Endenich; he is said to have suffered from manic depression
					and psychosis. 
				
			
			
				743 Reference to scientific articles on
					examination of the hypothalamus, conducted by Simon LeVay, Ph.D. , who
					claims this organ is markedly smaller in gay males and females than in
					heterosexual males.
				LeVay supports the thesis expressed in The Man Who
						Would Be Queen, that there are no "true" transgenders. The
					author, J. Michael Bailey, a faculty member at Northwestern University
					in Chicago, bases his assertion on Prof. Ray Blanchard's theory of
					autogynephilia, a term described as love of oneself as a woman. It
					suggests that there are only two types of male-to-female transsexuals:
					homosexual transsexuals and autogynephiles.
				[The views of Blanchard, Bailey and LeVay have been taken up by the
					Christian fundamentalist right to further their eradication of
					transgender persons and of homosexual behaviors. Ed.]
				
			
			
				75 Jean-Leon Gerôme (1824-1904) oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine
					Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA.
			
			
				76 Lacie & Zarkov's Comparison of MDA to MDMA:
				"The differences from MDM(A) are striking: MDA is more hallucinogenic
					with noticeable closed eye imagery, is a much greater aesthetic
					enhancer, especially of people and of music; is more euphoric; more
					"drug-like", a heavier and more obviously body-involved trip. Tactile
					sensation is more powerful, erotic and noticeable on MDA. Physical
					effects are more up-front: gastric upset, pupil dilation, water
					retention, limbic arousal. On the whole, we find MDA a more enjoyable
					and interesting trip; longer lasting and more sexual/sensual. Our
					favorite characteristic is that one retains an interesting psychedelic
					ideation on MDA, rather then the feeling-oriented, but rather idealess
					thinking of MDM(A). <http://www.erowid.org>
			
			
				77 Alan Hovhaness (rec. 4/28/1958), Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony
					Orchestra, RCA Victor.
			
			
				78 Olivier Messsiaen (rec. 1969?), Olivier Messiaen, organ, aux
					grandes orgues Cavaillé-Coll de l'eglise de la Sainte Trinité à Paris,
					Erato Recordings.
			
			
				79 György Ligeti (rec. April 7-9, 2001) for 12 female voices and
					orchestra, Asko/Schönberg Ensemble, Reinbert de Leeup, conductor,
					Teldec Classics.
			
			
				80 Luciano Berio (rec. 10/79), Kölner Runfunkchor, Kölner Rundfunk
					Sinfonie Orchester, Luciano Berio, conductor, DGG.
			
			
				81 Morten Lauridsen (rec. 1998), Los Angeles Master Chorale,
					Salamunovich, Director), Rubeda Canis Musica.
			
			
				82 Mud and Water: The Collected Teachings of Zen
						Master Bassui, translated by Arthur Bravermann. (2000, Wisdom
					Publications).
			
			
				83 Robert and Clara's children were: Marie (1841-1929), Elise
					(1843-1928), Julie (1845-72), Emil (1846-47), Ludwig (1848-99),
					Ferdinand (1849-91), Eugenie (1851-1938), Felix (1854-79).
				-Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) met the Schumanns in 1853, and remained
					a dear friend of both while they lived.
				-Robert's mental health was poor, and following a suicide attempt in
					1854, he was committed to the asylum at Endenich; he is said to have
					suffered from manic depression and psychosis. 
				-After Robert's death, Clara moved to Berlin in 1857, where she
					performed, taught, and edited Robert's works and letters; she was
					known as a champion and interpreter of the music of Schumann and
					Brahms, and was a direct influence on their music.  Her last home was
					in Frankfurt.
				-Brahms never married. Brahms' love for Clara was made somewhat
					public when he dedicated several songs to her. Clara Schumann died in
					1889. Brahms attended her graveside funeral. It was a cold and damp
					day and Brahms caught a "chill." He died just a few months later. Was
					it from the chill? Or was it from a lonely heart?
				You decide.
				 
			
			
				84 Benno Sarel, La class ouvriere d'Allemagne orientale (1945-1958)
					(Paris:Editionsw ouvrieres, 1958. quoted in Michael Hardt and Antonio
					Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire New York:
					Penguin Press, 2004.
			
			
				85 Jomo Kenyatta was born at Ng'enda in the Gatundu Division of
					Kiambu in the year 1889. As a boy, Kenyatta assisted his grandfather,
					who was a medicine man. Kenyatta took interest in Agikuyu culture and
					customs. He received his preliminary education at the Scottish Mission
					Center at Thogoto. He also received elementary technical education
					there.
				He was later baptized a Christian with the name of John Peter, which
					he changed to Johnstone. He changed his name to Jomo in 1938. He lived
					among Masai relatives in Narok during World War I. Here he worked as a
					clerk to an Asian trader. After the war, he served as a storekeeper to
					a European firm. At this time, he began wearing his beaded belt
					Kinyatta.
				In 1928, he published his newspaper, Muigwithania that dealt with
					Kikuyu culture and new farming methods. KCA sent him to England in
					1929 to influence British opinion on tribal land. After touring some
					parts of Europe, including Russia in 1930, he returned to Kenya to
					fight the case on female circumcision with the Scottish Mission. He
					supported the independent schools.
				In 1931, he again went to England to present a written petition to
					parliament. He met Mahatma Gandhi of India in November 1932. After
					giving evidence before the Morris Carter Commission, he proceeded to
					Moscow to learn Economics but was forced to return to Britain by 1933.
					During the gold rush, land in Kakamega reserve was being distributed
					to settlers. This made Kenyatta angry and spoke about Britain's
					injustice. For which reason he was dubbed a communist by the British.
					He taught Gikuyu at the University College, London and also wrote a
					book on the Kikuyu language in 1937. Under Professor Malinowski, he
					studied Anthropology at the famous London School of Economics (LSE).
					In 1938, his book, Facing Mount Kenya saw the
					light of day. It was about Kikuyu customs.
				During the World War II , Kenyatta served on a farm in the United
					Kingdom, while owning his own farm there. He married Edna Clarke,
					mother of his son, Peter Magana in 1942. Along with other African
					leaders, including Nkrumah of Ghana, he took part in the 5th
					Pan-African Congress of 1945 in Manchester.
				On October 20, 1952, Sir Evelyn, Baring, newly appointed Governor of
					Kenya of two weeks, declared a state of emergency in the country. Jomo
					Kenyatta and other prominent leaders were arrested. His trial at
					Kapenguria on April 8, 1953, for managing Mau Mau, was a mockery of
					justice. (Contemporary opinion linked him with the Mau Mau but later
					research claims otherwise. From Wikipedia.org 8 Aug, 2004. ) He was
					sentenced to 7 years in imprison (sic) with hard labor and to
					indefinite restrictions thereafter. On August 21, 1961, nine years
					after his arrest, he was freed from all restrictions.
				On June 1, 1963, Mzee Kenyatta became the first Prime
					Minister of self-governing Kenya. At midnight on December 12, 1963, at
					Uhuru Stadium, amid world leaders and multitudes of people, the Kenya
					flag was unfurled. A new nation was born. A year later on December 12,
					1964, Kenya became a Republic within the Commonwealth, with Kenyatta,
					as the President.
				Mzee Kenyatta is acclaimed from all quarters of the world as a true
					son of Africa, a renowned leader of vision, initiative, guidance and
					an international public figure of the highest caliber. Kenya under the
					"Baba Wa Taifa" (Father of the Nation) had enjoyed political
					stability, economic progress as well as agricultural, industrial and
					educational advances. From 1974 onwards, Mzee declared free primary
					education up to primary grade 4.
				At this stage he asked white settlers not to leave Kenya and
					supported reconciliation. He retained the role of prime minister after
					independence was declared on December 12, 1963. In 1964 he became
					president of the country.
				Kenyatta's policy was conciliatory and he kept many colonial civil
					servants in their old jobs. He had to ask for British troops' help
					against Somali revolts in the northeast and an army mutiny in Nairobi
					(January 1964). Some British troops remained in the country. On
					November 10, 1964, KADU's representatives joined the ranks of KANU,
					forming a single party.
				Kenyatta instituted relatively peaceful land reform, oversaw Kenya's
					joining the United Nations, and concluded trade agreements with Milton
					Obote's Ugandaand Julius Nyerere's Tanzania. He pursued a non-aligned
					foreign policy. Stability attracted foreign investment and he was an
					influential figure everywhere in Africa. However, his authoritarian
					policies drew criticism and caused dissent. (wikipedia.org)
				Jomo Kenyatta died on 22nd August 1978 at 3.30 A.M. in Mombasa at the
					age of 89 years. He was succeeded by Daniel Arap Moi.
			
			
				86 "
						Facing Mount Kenya is a central
					document of the highest distinction in anthropological literature, an
					invaluable key to the structure of African society and the nature of
					the African mind Facing Mount Kenya is not only
					a formal study of life and death, work and play, sex and the family in
					one of the greatest tribes of contemporary Africa, but a work of
					considerable literary merit. The very sight and sound of Kikuyu tribal
					life presented here are at once comprehensive and intimate, and as
					precise as they are compassionate.
				Jomo Kenyatta, the grandson of a Kikuyu medicine man, was among the
					foremost leaders of African nationalism and one of the great men at
					the modern world. In the 1930's he studied at the London School of
					Economics and took his degree in anthropology under Bronislaw
					Malinowski, one result of which is this now famous account of his own
					Kikuyu tribe." Female Genital Cutting Education and
						Networking Project
					
						www.fgmnetwork.org
					
				
				It is important to note that Malinowski was one of the inventors of
					functionalist anthropology, a man, a european. His view of the actions
					of non-european peoples was, by force of his status as a guest in the
					places he studied, a laissez-faire one. It is reasonable to assume
					that he taught Kenyatta and other students to "understand" the
					function of clitoridectomy in Kikiyu culture but discouraged
					censorious views of such practices (e.g. those of Scottish
					missionaries in Kenya) on the grounds of non-intervention. Much debate
					has ensued over the years regarding clitoridectomy and female genital
					cutting. As in this excerpt from Kenyatta, the debate frequently pits
					live African women against tradition and yet by "defending a culture"
					leaves a relatively recent historical artifact in place without
					critique.
			
			
				87 Bruce Bagemihl , Biological Exuberance. Animal
						Homosexuality and Natural Diversity.
				St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999,
			
			
				88 Blog by Cristina Cardoze at www.rockhawk.com
			
			
				89 review by Susan McCarthy at salon.com
			
			
				90 review by Gert Korthof, 21 Sep 2003   (updated 24 Apr 2004) at
					www.wasdarwingwrong.com
				
			
			
				91 OH-58D KIOWA WARRIOR RECONNAISSANCE/ATTACK
						HELICOPTER, USA
				
				
				The Armed OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, in service with the US Army, is
					supplied by Bell Helicopter Textron of Fort Worth, Texas. Around 375
					Kiowas are in service and the single engine, double-bladed armed
					reconnaissance helicopter has been deployed in support of United
					States armed forces around the world including Haiti, Somalia and the
					Gulf of Arabia (Desert Storm and Desert Shield). In 2002, Kiowas were
					deployed as part of NATO's SFOR forces in Bosnia and, in 2003, 120
					Kiowas were deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
				
				The primary mission of the helicopter is in the scout attack role.
					The helicopter can be optionally equipped to carry out transport and
					utility roles using equipment kits installed externally on existing
					hard points. A cargo carrying hook is rated to carry loads up to
					2,000lb. Emergency casualty evacuation can be carried out transporting
					two casualties on litters (stretchers), plus over 320kg of supplies to
					an operating radius of more than 185km. The Kiowa can be used for
					insertion of up to six troops for critical point security missions.
				WEAPONS
				The OH-58D is equipped with two universal quick change weapons
					pylons. Each pylon can be armed with two Hellfire missiles, seven
					Hydra 70 rockets, two air-to-air Stinger missiles or one .50 calibre
					fixed forward machine gun.
				Mission processors control the suite of mission subsystems via a
					Military Standard 1553B bus. An onboard computer provides laser
					ranging and target location within 10m.
				
				
					COUNTERMEASURES
				
				The countermeasures suite includes an AN/ALQ-144 infrared jammer,
					radar warning receivers against pulsed and continuous wave radars and
					a laser warning detector.
				
				FIRE CONTROL AND OBSERVATION
				The distinctive Mast Mounted Sight (MMS) from Boeing, situated above
					the rotor blades, enables the Kiowa Warrior to operate by day and
					night and to engage the enemy at the maximum range of the weapon
					systems and with the minimum exposure of the helicopter. The mast
					mounted sight contains a suite of sensors which includes: a high
					resolution television camera for long range target detection; a
					thermal imaging sensor for navigation, target acquisition and
					designation; a laser rangefinder/designator for target location and
					guidance of the Hellfire missiles and designation for Copperhead
					artillery rounds; and a boresight assembly which provides in-flight
					sensor alignment. The laser rangefinder/designator is also employed
					for handoff to an AH-1 Cobra helicopter for TOW missile engagements.
					DRS Technologies is currently responsible for the contract for the
					sensor suite.
				
				NAVIGATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
				The US Army OH-58D is equipped with an attitude heading reference
					system (AHRS) from Litton and an integrated global positioning system
					and inertial navigation system, GPS/INS. A data-loading module allows
					the pre-mission storing of navigation waypoint data and radio
					frequencies.
				
				The mission equipment includes an Improved Data Modem for Digital
					Battlefield Communications, (IDMDBC). The communications system is
					based on the Have-Quick UHF and SINCGARS FM anti-jam radio.
				
				ENGINE
				The OH-58D Helicopter is equipped with a Model 250 485kW turbine
					engine from Rolls-Royce. The transmission has a transient power level
					of 475kW. The engine and transmission system have been upgraded to
					provide high performance levels in high temperature and extreme
					climates.
				(information supplied by www.army-technology.com/projects/kiowa "the website for the
					defense industry"
				
			
			
				92 website: www.shephard.co.uk
			
			
				93 The anachronistic use of the word revolutionary is permissible
					here as these Brethren and Sistren of the Free Spirit are anarchists
						avant la lettre.
				
			
			
				94 see Chap 35
			
			
				95 see Chap 25
			
			
				96 cf. Chap 23
			
			
				97 see Chap 36
			
			
				98 see Chap 48
				
			
			
				99 
				
			
			
				100 directed by William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Mark Vicente, 2004.
			
			
				101 Heisenberg's discussions moved rather freely and quickly from
					talk about experimental inaccuracies to epistemological or ontological
					issues and back again. However, ontological questions seemed to be of
					somewhat less interest to him. For example, there is a passage
					(Heisenberg, 1927, p. 197), where he discusses the idea that, behind
					our observational data, there might still exist a hidden reality in
					which quantum systems have definite values for position and momentum,
					unaffected by the uncertainty relations. He emphatically dismisses
					this conception as an unfruitful and meaningless speculation, because,
					as he says, the aim of physics is only to describe observable data.
					Similarly in the Chicago Lectures (Heisenberg 1930, p. 11) he warns
					against the fact that the human language permits the utterance of
					statements which have no empirical content at all, but nevertheless
					produce a picture in our imagination. He notes, "One should be
					especially careful in using the words 'reality', 'actually', etc.,
					since these words very often lead to statements of the type just
					mentioned." So, Heisenberg also endorsed an interpretation of his
					relations as rejecting a reality in which particles have simultaneous
					definite values for position and momentum.
					http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08c.htm
			
			
				102 Bohr denied that classical concepts could be used to attribute
					properties to a physical world in-itself behind the phenomena, i.e.
					properties different from those being observed. In contrast, classical
					physics rests on an idealization, he said, in the sense that it
					assumes that the physical world has these properties in-itself, i.e.
					as inherent properties, independent of their actual observation.
					http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
			
			
				103
				Bohm suggests that the whole universe can be thought of as a kind of
					giant, flowing hologram, or holomovement, in
					which a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each
					region of space and time. The explicate order is a projection from
					higher dimensional levels of reality, and the apparent stability and
					solidity of the objects and entities composing it are generated and
					sustained by a ceaseless process of enfoldment and unfoldment, for
					subatomic particles are constantly dissolving into the implicate order
					and then recrystallizing.
				
				The quantum potential postulated in the causal interpretation
					corresponds to the implicate order. But Bohm suggests that the quantum
					potential is itself organized and guided by a superquantum potential,
					representing a second implicate order, or superimplicate order. Indeed
					he proposes that there may be an infinite series, and perhaps
					hierarchies, of implicate (or "generative") orders, some of which form
					relatively closed loops and some of which do not. Higher implicate
					orders organize the lower ones, which in turn influence the higher.
				
				Bohm believes that life and consciousness are enfolded deep in the
					generative order and are therefore present in varying degrees of
					unfoldment in all matter, including supposedly "inanimate" matter such
					as electrons or plasmas. He suggests that there is a
					"protointelligence" in matter, so that new evolutionary developments
					do not emerge in a random fashion but creatively as relatively
					integrated wholes from implicate levels of reality. The mystical
					connotations of Bohm's ideas are underlined by his remark that the
					implicate domain "could equally well be called Idealism, Spirit,
					Consciousness. The separation of the two -- matter and spirit -- is an
					abstraction. The ground is always one."
					http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Physics-David-Bohm-Holographic-Universe.htm
			
			
				104 Addiction is another completely unscientific concept. usually
					applied in order to enforce socially approved behaviors; "addicts" and
					"homosexuals" are, for example, the "carriers" of AIDS. See "Epidemics
					of the Will," in Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick's Tendencies (Duke:1993)
			
			
				105 An entity named Ramtha is channeled by JZ Knight in What the Bleep: "One of the great enigmas that
					scientists have studied in the last decade is Ramtha, a mystic,
					philosopher, master teacher and hierophant. His partnership with
					American woman JZ Knight, his channel, still baffles scholars." [Ed:
					It certainly baffles me-- see ramtha.com ]