Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Jef and Geno slipped.
  

    

I haven't thought of TBBS in years. Another case in point would be the folks
who created Wildcat!, then bought Qmodem and various offline readers to
become a complete BBS solution. Mustang Software, that's their name. Soon
after that, the ability of BBSs to get net email and newsgroups made
software like Wildcat! and PCBoard really popular. There never was a really
good mail tosser for those products that would link those boards with Fido.
Instead they were linked with nets like ILink, RIME and others.

Then ISPs popped up, along with the web. BBSs closed down by the thousands
within 2-3 years. It happened so fast, in retrospect, that most sysops
didn't even see it coming. Or lived in denial about it.

From the early 80s, it does seem that BBSs/MUDs were on a parallel track
from those folks who were early to the net. But there were tens of thousands
of people involved. Chump change by today's wired standards, but still a
sizable number of folks involved. I would think this book is aimed at them.
And perhaps to those who were on the net who didn't know much about
BBSs/MUDs, and vice versa. Both have rich histories and both had rich
cultures.
  

    

Three slips. There's even non-shallow parts of AOL, although god knows you
have to dig for them.

Geno, you are more than welcome to participate. I agree it's best to leave
JSF elsewhere. Perhaps you'd be interested in the Well's flame.ind or weird
conferences. I remember flame echos like Fido's, or the very unofficial one
semi-attached to ILink called Bytebrothers. And war boards that were mostly
populated by teens. I'd rather see Indra's book become the center point of
this discussion.

Bringing things back to that, Indra, here was part of my post before
yesterday's festivities:

Indra, I want to just list some things I remember from the book, text that
 was very potent, and see if you would comment on some of it. Feel free to
 quote from Cybergypsies as well:

 * The time you forgot about picking up your child from school because you
 were online.

 * Biffo's abandonment of his family to Scientology, and how that mirrored
 some of your own experience, especially recognizing that when Eve gets very
 angry and throws things

 * The entire cannobalism/death story, where Lilith tells you that it's all
a
 "safe" thing to do because it's all in the imagination -- your mental
 response to that was perhaps one of the more compelling parts of
 Cybergypsies for me.

 * Taking three months off from the net after you found out about your heart
 condition, and then coming back to the huge war on Shades -- could you
 recount a bit about that war and how it escalated?

 * Your non-meeting with Luna, and how it changed you.

I'm very interested in your accounts of these, and how they tie into the
themes of your book.
  

    
Geno, it should be Gandhi not Ghandi. Please don't make this mistake
again. Oh and I still haven't received those pictures of Brandi.

Jef, I forgot to add, Cybergypsies isn't just about MUDs and Fido type
bulletin boards, it is also about people doing human rights and other
work on Greennet, about real world work with Amnesty, Kurds, Bhopal
victims including eyewitness stories from Kurdistan, Tibet and Bhopal,
about the British government's record on arms sales, about the Kama
Sutra and the genetics of nematodes, about Venice and Kissimmee Saint
Cloud and Ireland, about Sussex woods, old stone circles, a search for
a circus, a conversation with Don McCullin, about Jack the Ripper,
about a strange trip to the west of Ireland, and a porn actress from
LA, about a visionary building built by an obscure French postman, it
is about getting involved in Green politics, and being asked to spy on
a nuclear installation, about the architect Carlo Scarpa and the
politics of Northern Ireland, about a meeting with Ian Paisley Junior,
Sussex carnivals, receiving a special package from the Dalai Lama, a
visionary Scotsman, about trying to trap a child pornographer, being
bollocked by Lord Jeffrey Archer and composing a song in his honour.
It's several people's love stories, not least mine: the story of a
loving marriage put under intolerable strain, and what was done to try
to save it.
  

    
...I forgot to add scientology to that list, and a monomaniac Indian
bookseller.

Hello again Lizabeth, feel like I'm shouting to you across a crowded
room. The book *isn't* aimed at the ex-BBS and MUD people, or net
people in general, it was intended for the general reader. I would like
to put an end to the I-was-there-first or
my-net-is-better-than-your-net arguments, not merely because they're
deeply unintelligent, but because they are missing the point. The book
isn't fundamentally about the net, it's about people and what they do
in their imaginations.

This afternoon I was in the middle of writing a post to you about this
when there were three loud bangs and the electricity went. High winds
and rain all night - must be the tail end of your recent hurricane - a
branch had blown into a transformer two fields away and lit up the sky
with a flash like lightning. It's only just come on. Thank god it
didn't go during the England v South Africa world cup rugby match, 
albeit we got hammered by the Springboks, but what a brilliant team
they are. Did anyone else see it?

I was going to say that a potted version of the non-meeting with Luna
and the cannibalism thing are in the article I mentioned I wrote for
the Times, at http://www.cybergypsies.com/times.html. 

The easiest way to talk about some of the other things you mention
might just be to quote a small chunk from the text. I'll do that soon.
  

    
Gail I thought your question (#26) to Geno was very perceptive. I
guess he has no objections to how I portrayed him - well I am extremely
fond of him and it shows. He jokes about Cyber Trailer Park Trash, but
what he didn't mention is the unofficial nursing work he had been
doing, which I have been urging him to write about. That really is an
amazing story, which I guess he ought to tell you himself...if he wants
to.
  

    
Geno, do you fancy talking about the rock tribe at all? 

Another thing I meant to ask when I interviewed you for the website
was your view on the strange symbiotic relationship between the virus
writers and the anti-virus people. Didn't Tiphoid Mary fall foul of
both sides? And what was CRiS really all about? I don't even know if
NuKE is still going...on or off the internet...you sent me a nodelist
about a year ago, but I didn't recognise any of the BBS names.
  

    
Hey, I thought MUD's were mostly on the Internet and didn't have modem
lines.  Wasn't that a separate crowd from BBS's?
  

    

Not at all. There were a lot of MUDs and other role-playing game sites that
were not accessible from the net.
  

    
Hi Brian, the multi-user games I played in the eighties and early
nineties were not on the internet. The Vortex ran on a PC covered in
candle stubs and wax stalactites, it had four lines, each with its own
modem. That was it, for years. In fact it is still like that. The other
game, Shades, was run first on a closed British Telecom network called
Micronet, then, when Micronet imploded, on a couple of private
numbers. It has now found an internet incarnation
(telnet://games.world.co.uk) 

Nearly all the early MUG/MUDs were direct dial ups to people's homes.
(The vast majority claim descent one way or another from EssexMUD which
was written at Essex University in the seventies. Shades is a first
generation descendent.) Only in the last few years have MUDs exploded
onto the internet.

Having said this, if anyone knows of an NT server willing to host a
telnettable experimental MUD free, please let me know.
  

    

Sorry for the typos
Joggle not goggle. Vedantin not vendantin.

I think I am going to run to 12 St. and
see if the book is in yet at Strand. (1/2 price)
Cause I'm curious about it. Though frankly I
started to read the part on the Web page about
cannibalism; it interfered with my dinner.
Not the first thing on the list for a vegetarian to get into.

The part about meeting Luna I found very creepy.
Myself, I hate arranging to meet people in public
who I have met on-line. I always seem to end up
missing the people and it gives me the creeps.
In fact I will refuse to go to meet someone
unless they tell me *exactly* what they look
like, give me a phone number in case something goes
wrong etc. Otherwise I just get too spooked out.

There were a lot of people I became very close
to through the Audio "BBS" the Apology Line.
When Mr. Apology died we had a rendez-vous in
Central Park. Some people held back and spied
on the others. In this case it was fairly creepy
since criminals who had confessed on the Line
had in the past threatened Mr. Apology.
That's why he had been forced almost right away
to hide his identity.

But when we did meet we found out we knew each
other better than anyone. That was also very
wierd. A very deep bond had been forged.

I curious, Indra, you don't seem angry at all
at Luna for the trick she played on you. Why?
  

    
Marguerite, you're about to read the book, so I'd rather let you
discover the answer to that question, but the experience was pivotal.
  

    
With hindsight it is easy to see that heart thing, or something else
just as dramatic, had to happen. Something had to change. From the
instant the Rollright witch gave me the key to cyberspace my old life
vanished. Night after night into the small hours, with jobs undone,
letters unanswered, bills unpaid and work the next morning, I'd sit
tapping keys and piling up debt while upstairs, alone in our bed, Eve
grew despairing. My promises to her about the house, the garden, were
forgotten as voices from cyberspace lured me away. At first these were
the voices of real people, but gradually my life became peopled by
cyber-entities, imaginary beings, bodiless golems which nonetheless had
the power to act, start chains of cause and effect that ricocheted
back into the 'real' world and rebounded on Eve who had no chance to
understand what was happening. All she knew was that I had persuaded
her to come from a comfortable house to this damp, rotting place, then
abandoned her. Eve had been more than my lover, more than a wife, she
was my greatest friend. We had shared everything, ideas, travels,
discoveries. Now there were all these places, creatures and things I
had seen but could not share with her, partly because it was too
difficult to explain, partly because I no longer dared. And the Grolius
curse was reasserting its pattern. The hours I was keeping were so
extreme that a day could go by without speaking. More than once, I came
home to find a note taped on the computer screen, because that's where
Eve knew I'd go as soon as I got inside the door. Riddled with guilt,
with contempt and anguish, I nevertheless lacked the power to fight the
addiction. On the contrary, while my guilt grew, my experiences and
pleasure multiplied.

"Around the world thoughts shall fly in the twinkling of an eye." So
the original Rollright witch, Mother Shipton, had prophesied. I had the
huge power to travel the world in an eye-blink, conjure sprites from
the past: spirits at my command came bringing weird intelligence and
knowledge of arcane sciences and arts. Like Dee, I crouched over the
phoshorescent crucible of my screen, conversing with demons and angels.
Outside the garden, which had begun to be under control, reverted
joyfully to the wild and on windy nights as I sat at the computer the
brambles came tapping again at the windows.

A thing from that time. Winter, darkness come early. An evening of
blustery gusts. I'm at home, have promised to collect our small son
from school. By 5:15 p.m., pick up time, it's already dark. In my
study, lit by the flickering screen, I suddenly notice that it's 6:30.
Eve will kill me. Rush to the car and drive on leaf-slippery lanes to
the school. Now 6:45, a remote place, no houses near. A teacher must
have stayed behind with him. Perhaps he'll be in the school office. ALl
is dark, no lights anywhere. I pull up in a panic, the night loud, air
full of drops of water, not rain, but raining from the trees. Sudden
silence, drops drumming on the bonnet of the car as I get out, wind
chucks under my chin with cold unfriendly fingers, somewhere a door is
banging. It's pitch dark, not a soul around. Where is he? Someone must
have taken them home with them. Why didn't they call? Who else might
have come by this lonely lane? I walk round, the yard empty, area by
gate empty, door to the school shut and, I try it, locked. Now I'm
really scared, don't dare leave, don't know where to go next. Bushes
caught by the wind, shaking wildly. Then out from the deep shadows by
the gate a small figure steps, satchel over his shoulder, comes forward
with a little brave smile, as if to say he'd always trusted I would
come, had just waited to make sure it was me. He doesn't reproach me or
say how cold or terrified he must have been. I touch his chubby child
cheeks, tears are rolling down my face. He says "Don't worry Dad, I was
only a bit scared, I knew you'd come."
  

    


Sheesh. Your son sounds like a very sweet boy.
Mine would likely have had the police there,
been setting off flares to attract attention and/or
crying dramatically in the center of a circle of neighbors.

How discreet and kind of him. You are very blessed.

Don't know if this is the right place in the queue
to put this. But I received a reply this morning
from S. Shankarananda.

Relevant portion:

"I remember that story from Baba telling it.  It was about
King Janaka and, according to Baba, it is found in one of
the Upanishads. Only the deformed sage Ashtavakra could give
a satisfactory answer to Janaka's question as to which was
the reality, the dream or the waking state.  Ashtavakra
pointed out, like a good Vedantin, that both dream and waking
are unreal.  Only the Self is real, everything else is a
temporary illusion.

But you are entirely correct about the Yoga Vashishta.
It is full of stories in which a person meditates in one world,
and then undergoes many lifetimes [in other worlds through the
portal of meditation] only to reawaken from his meditation
in the original place. Vashishta was Lord Ram's Guru and the book
is his teaching to the young avatar.  It is Vedantic-psychedelic,
with a hint of Shaivism's "all is consciousness".   A very
interesting medieval work.  The most accessible translation
is by Swami Venkatesananda a disciple of Swami Shivananda of
Rishikesh.  Venkatesa died years ago..........

.....Your dialogue with Indra Sinha is very interesting.

We too have lived many realities in this one lifetime.
Which of them is real?"
  

    
Classic bit of 'forest wisdom'. It reminds me of a riddle, possibly
also from one of the Upanishads:

The flag on the temple-top is flapping in the breeze. What is moving?
Is it the flag that is moving? Or the wind?
  

    

That account of your son at school is so vivid. 

Indra, how much time do you spend online these days? Does it ever
concern your wife and family now?
  

    

God, it surely was.  Having had my own little online-jones for a few years,
I'm still struggling with the residual guilt of not being there for my son
when he was younger.  I never forgot to pick him up after school,
thankfully, but I sure did closet myself in my office at home, glued to the
monitor screen for countless hours.

My payback is obvious, however.  My son (now 14) spends as much, if not
more, of his free time online than I ever did.
  

    
Doing this is the most time I've spent on the net lately. Usually I
just check my email and sometimes look stuff up in search engines. But
I am in touch with old friends. Looked into Shades earlier and half an
hour ago bumped into a lot of old players in the Vortex. It isn't a
problem anymore.

Libbi, what you say rings bells with me too. My three kids are all
online, emailing their friends and on ICQ and whatnot.
  

    
I forgot to ask, how do you know Alastair McIntosh? Must be through
your ecological work. Were you involved in any of his campaigns?
  

    

So little time, so many assholes to flame.... Oppsie forgot I've been
banned from here.

I'M JUST A SEX OBJECT TO YOU AREN'T I....?
-ROCKEY TO BULLWINKLE

Carry on as you were.




-Jesus, Son of Gawd
  

    

Indra,

Concerning the pictures, I've taken some more of Brandi and I at the
Gym (not sure if those will come out, flash wasn't working that day)
and some of Maggie.

Had I more time I'd argue with Jefie on fido technology used today in
and on the Web. He really should read more about modem transfer
protocalls and compression technology, but who wants to argue?

Bit scrapped for time right now, but I guess I could go into the Rock
Tribe stuff here though it seems a bit off topic. Could also tell
about one of NuKE's biggest stunts that was never published anywhere
(George covered a bit of it). How we managed to put a virus inside
of Thunderbyte and have Jeff Cook (who was at the time the North
American Thunderbyte distribution site) spread it around for us. Cook
actually showed up at the hospital I worked at wanting to kick my
butt over that one :) It was pretty funny.



-Geno
  

    
Ah... the *persona* is banned.  Makes perfect sense now.  Geno, what's Rock
Tribe?
  

    
Well I'd like to hear the story. The Thunderbyte guys, Frans Veldman
downwards, always seemed so unbearably smug. 
  

    
(BTW, for those of you wondering where you can get a copy of Indra's debut
work, try http://www.well.com/bookstore/index.html  and click on the image
of "The Cybergypsies" book cover)
  

    
Geno, have you any idea what became of Edwin Cleton after the fiasco
in the virus echo? 

Explanation: Cleton, moderator of the Fido virus echo, had a habit of
abusing people whose views he didn't like and threatening them with
what he called his "electronic baseball bat". This was irresistible to
the virus mob who turned up in numbers to take the piss, the biggest
wind-up being Jesus SF's coup d'etat. This is told in George Smith's
excellent book "The Virus Creation Labs" and also in "Cybergypsies".

Only when writing Cybergypsies did I realise that an "electronic
baseball bat" is an electroshock weapon. In a bizarre coincidence, at
the height of the Jesus-Cleton ruckus, a parcel wrapped in muslin was
delivered here to my house. It contained three electro-shock weapons
that had been smuggled out of Tibet by a Buddhist monk called Palden
Gyatso, who had been tortured with them. Gyatso bribed a Chinese prison
guard to get hold of these vile things and then made his escape to
India, where he presented them to the Dalai Lama.

They came to me because I was doing an appeal for Amnesty about the
use of shock weapons in China and these were the only ones we could get
hold of. They were lent to us by the Dalai Lama who asked that they be
treated with the utmost respect, because they were the symbols of his
people's pain. Strangely, six months later, I was approached by the
Tibet Support Group and asked to write an ad about Palden Gyatso, who
was coming to London. And the little muslin bundle turned up at my door
again, with the same horrible objects inside, their electrodes
corroded with green and blue salts and spotted with some gummy
substance.

In Cybergypsies these two sections, about Cleton's electronic bat and
the Chinese torture weapons, are juxtaposed. I did it for the same
reason I juxtaposed Lilith's gleeful account of the cannibal feast in
the Vortex with Don McCullin's anguished memories. I wanted to
demonstrate the power of the imagination to create worlds, and the
consequences of its failure in the real world.

It's after 2am here, very quiet after the wind and rain of the last
couple of days. Not a sound, not a breath of air. Clear sky and bright
full moon. You could hear a leaf fall.