Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Lizabeth wrote:

>You were helpful in bringing an end to Micronet (if you wish to give 
>an account of that situation, it would be useful -- maybe a thumbnail
> sketch of the preceeding war and why you got involved). Yet even 
>though you had faxed off the materials that BT finally took
seriously,
> you were there for the very end, piled on a bed with all of the
other
> participants as the clock was striking midnight. What was it like
for
> you to be on both sides of that?
>        What were you feeling as the end came closer? And is the book
>the first time folks knew that you were involved in bringing Micronet
>down? If not, how did they react when they found out?

I never intended to destroy Micronet. I think BT used the excuse of
what had happened to can it, because at the time (1991) they saw no
future in online communication. At the time nobody knew I had sent the
fax. By the time the book came out, no-one cared. Shades is now in a
new internet incarnation. It is not as it was. In the old days...

in Shades there was a room, a private room, which no-one could see
into. If it was empty, you could enter and...

"You are lying on a soft, comfortable bed though somehow you don't
think sleep is the appropriate course of action...the bed itself is a
wonderful brass four poster that creaks slightly each time you move,
and fitted with white satin sheets that slither sensuously against
you...All around the bed the fittings and fixtures on the room's walls
seem to indicate that you are in a bridal suite...a paler patch on the
ceiling reveals there was once a mirror there."

Into this room players went for what Private Eye magazine in London
describes as "Ugandan purposes". Some players were well-known tarts,
who tried to seduce just about everyone they met. The problem arose
when one of these sirens approached a player who, unbeknownst to
him/her was a ten year old child, playing on his uncle's computer. The
child reacted with alarm when propositioned and called out. His uncle,
who was a well-known player, complained to the game's management, and
demanded that the bridal suite be closed. At which there was a huge
outcry from other players, some of whom were pursuing personal feuds.
This blew up into a major row which divided the players - there were in
those days hundreds of them. A few, including myself, were on the side
of the player who had complained. The opposition was led by - this
sounds so ridiculous - a powerful Archwizard. The mutterings against my
friend became a vendetta, co-ordinated by the Archwizard. An article,
of the utmost scurrility and containing libels was published in the
game's journal, edited by said Archwizard. When Micronet's dozy
managers finally woke up to what was happening and insisted that the
article be canned, the Archwizard resigned, at which point the
surreality of the cyberworld finally overwhelmed reason. Hate messages
against my friend poured in on the Shades chatline. The Micronet
managers refused to remove them. My friend began to receive threats of
physical violence and some hothead threatened to firebomb him, if
anyone would publish his address. Within minutes the address was
posted. But still the Micronet people did nothing. So I sent a fax to
the Chief Executive of BT, quoting these things and asking when his
company proposed to wake up to its responsibilities. Next morning all
the chatlines were closed. Without them, Micronet was effectively dead.
The official decision to close it down was not long coming. On the
last night of Shades, all the players on the game piled into the bed in
the bridal suite and counted down till midnight, as recounted in
Cybergypsies.

"Almost every Shades player who ever was is here, laughing as if
midnight will never come. As the hour approaches, their hilarity
builds. Finally there are only minutes left. Then only one minute.
Together they count down to the end of the world. Ten...nine...eight...
in the minds of the watchers, in those last few seconds, the ground
shakes, lightning flashes above the forests...seven...six...they are
shouting out the numbers now...five...four...the city walls begin to
crumble, the castle's black towers tremble, totter and slowly start to
fall...THREE!...TWO!...In the last second, lightning glares across a
world collapsing, towers, trees and ruined city shimmer, vanish and are
seen no more."
  

    
Cynthia, I am touched by the speed and warmth of your response. Thank
you. Unfortunately we have no means at the moment of taking online
donations. However, cheques can certainly be sent to:

The Pesticides Trust (Bhopal Account)
Eurolink Centre
49 Effra Road
London SW2 1BZ
UK

I'll try to find a US address to which donations can also be sent.  
  

    
Lizabeth, it seems rather corny to say "I'm glad you asked that", but
nonetheless I am, not least because the Bhopal issue is something that
so badly needs airing. There never was a game situation which could
compare, but of course there was Halabja, the Kurdish town bombed with
cyanide on the morning of March 16 1988. They too lost about five
thousand dead in clouds of gas which stripped the linings from their
lungs and left them drowning in their own fluids.

Last year, in an effort to raise money in India I wrote the following
(original in Hindi, this is a translation):

TORTURE ME

Throw acid in my eyes, play a blowtorch down my throat. 
Strip the lining from my lungs. Drown me in my own blood.

Choke my child to death in front of me. Force me to watch
 her struggles as she dies. Spare me nothing. Make me curse God.

Make me a child, then cripple me. Let pain be my daily, and my 
only playmate. 

Deceive me. Tell me lies. Destroy my life. Ruin my livelihood. 
Take my job. Give me no help.  

Tie my hands. Abuse me. Sneer at me. Treat me like shit. 
Fill me with despair. Kill all hope.

Make me suffer for fifteen years. Torture me. Show no pity. 
Never say sorry. Do nothing to help. 

Make my heart crack my ribs with useless anger.
Touch me with rage, make my hairs stand on end. Make me weep.

Teach me what it is to be a gas victim of Bhopal.
  

    
So much suffering in the face of such heartlessness. It's enough to make you
weep.

Indra, yes, please find a U.S. address if you can and post it.
  

    

Indra, the section on Bhopal is one of the most powerful in the book. It
might be a possibility for articles based on it in magazines or places like
Salon: Bhopal, 16 years later (is that right?) and what's been done. It
needs a good public airing.

I agree with your decision to fax that head of BT. Real life threats cross
the line. And I sympathize with the frustration with BT. In the early 90s, I
worked for BT-NA (north america) and often brought up the net, the IP side,
and what might be done for clients with it. The overwhelming response was
that aside form finding the occasional tech RFC now and then, it was of no
use to anyone but geeks and college kids. Even in the lynx/early web days,
there was the same thinking.

It gives me no end of pleasure to know how wrong they were.

Indra, if you were able to speak to newcomers to the net, what are the five
things you would most want them to know as they start this experience?
  

    
1) For me the greatest value of the net is the people you can meet,
the fun you can have, and the things you can learn and achieve
together.

2) Commercialisation is inevitable, but because the net is a buyer's
market, companies have to change the way they communicate, ergo the way
they think. Bullshit doesn't work, they have to start offering
something of real value. Worth remembering therefore that on the net,
you are the boss.

3) Behind all the flashy websites is the realm of the imagination. For
me, as I said in Cybergypsies, "cyberspace" is nothing more or less
than a subset of the human imagination. At the two extremes of all the
people I liked hanging out with on the net, there were two types:
people who used the power of the imagination to create utopias in which
they sought escape from the "real" world (Luna), and those who used
their imaginations to try to change things in the "real" world for the
better (Alastair McIntosh, Sathyu Sarangi)...

...Luna held that all experience is equally real and not to be
downgraded because it is "only" in the imagination. How real do the
people of Bhopal, of Halabja, of Kosovo, of Sarajevo and Dili and
Kigali seem to us? Luna wrote in the "Cyber Sutra": "Pain is always
real."

4) Bear, the book's narrator (ergo author's alter ego) tried to treat
everyone he met with equanimity and a certain respect, whether they
were loudmouthed virus writers, eccentric physicists who wanted to blow
up the moon, roleplayers who struggled against their humanity, or
activists for good causes like Alastair McIntosh and Sathyu. The joy of
people is accepting and enjoying them as they are. It was not always
possible to do this. Bear did not like Nasty Ned the Net Nark, but that
was because Ned (currently in prison) was into child pornography.

5) The net is the hugest resource library ever - Shakespeare's plays
searchable by words or phrases, what a boon for scholars - people who
like learning will find it an endless pleasure. It is also a playground
and a laboratory where you can discover things about yourself and
stretch yourself. The Vortex is a perfect place for a writer or actor
to try out characters. Any psychologist would have been fascinated by
the weird ructions that heralded the death of Shades and Micronet.
  

    
        Even while speaking he stole away from Wyrd
        the keen smoking blade, whirling it around his head
        and gathering all his massive strength,
        like an eagle that pierces the dark clouds
        to seize a young lamb or cowering hare,
        so Hagstor stooped, waving the savage sword;
        but Wyrd rushed against him, mad with anger,
        and lifing up his shield to receive the blow,
        sparing his gold-hornèd helm, won in the lion's
        mphitheatre, stole back the sword and struck.
        Noble Hagstor laughed aloud, reached to take it back,
        but even as his fingers closed round the hilt,
        its shining blade grew dark, the gleaming edge
        was like a great comet fading in a night of stars,
        the brightest star resolving to a gleam, malign
        and deadly, from the fang of the evil-toothed rat,
        which once more appeared in Wyrd's mailed hand.
        At the tender place where neck and shoulders join
        crazy Wyrd let drive the rat, its foul decaying teeth
        sank deep into Hagstor's neck yet clave not
        the windpipe, that Hagstor might yet speak unto his foe.
        And Wyrd shouted so that all the land could hear,
        'Hagstor, when you murdered Truffles, I doubt
        you dreamed that any could avenge him, yet now
        I've loosened your knees, I disdain to finish you
        myself, but by a low and carrion creature
        you will unseemy and dishonorably be despatched.

        Wyrd called then for the vile Worryguts, 
        who took up a woodsman's heavy axe and with this 
        blunt and rustic tool hastened to where Hagstor lay
        gasping his life out at the feet of Wyrd.

        Then strength gone, Hagstor of the flashing helm said,
        "I implore you by your life and knees and honour,
        do not let this peasant slaughter me, take my life
        yourself with a fighter's weapon, give me a warrior's death
        and my friends will forgive you this act of treachery.'
        But frowning in fury spoke pitiless Wyrd, "I'll not stop him
        from taking off your head; not if your friends bring here
        and weigh out thy weight in gold; but these small folk
        who hate thee shall look on and laugh."

        Thus in his dying spoke Hagstor of the flashing blade,
        "Wyrd I know you well and prophesy what shall be,
        if you do this, on you the wrath of the immortals
        will fall on the day when Hellborn and Mehitabel
        and the great Coder who made all things
        and British Telecom shall destroy you utterly.
        But even as he spoke Worryguts swung the axe
        and Hagstor's head flew from his body
        and his soul fled shrieking to the underworld
        whence none return, and to his corpse said Wyrd,
        "Lie there dead, Hagstor, my own fate I am content
        to accept when it is determined by the Coder
        and all the other immortals."
  

    

Very strange. When I was invited to the Well I was promised that there
was no censorship. It seems I was lied to. Whomever is censoring me
is afraid even to approach me about it. They are the type of spineless
coward who "scribs" over your posts and hopes no one notices (or just
plain deletes it).

LUKE GET YOUR DICK OUTTA MY WOOKIE!
-REPUTED WORDS OF  HON SOLO

All in all it doesn't really bother me. Censorship snobs hurt
themselves more than anyone else. In any case I will not be back until
the censorship stops. Good day all!



-Jesus

P.S. Send twenty bucks in small bills to the following address to
recieve an signed picture of Jesus (naked pictures are $50 extar):


   Geno Enterprises
   909 N.W. 12 Suite S
   Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73106
  

    
Certainly if you were told that you were misinformed-- conference hosts
can scribble and hide posts in their conferences.

There's no mystery about who scribbled your posts:

inkwell.vue.52.80: Geno Paris (jesuschrist)  Tue 26 Oct 99 03:29
 <scribbled by tnf Tue 26 Oct 99 14:40>
inkwell.vue.52.82: Geno Paris (jesuschrist)  Tue 26 Oct 99 10:55
 <scribbled by tnf Tue 26 Oct 99 14:40>
  

    <scribbled by dloebell Thu 28 Oct 99 08:53>
  

    
For the censorship policy, see 
http://www.well.com/user/confteam/hostmanual/section1.html#4
  

    

The fact that there is a censorship policy speaks volumes. And
dloebell boy, thank you I can read, you fucking moron, I know who
censored me. I just don't know who tnf is. Censorship is it's own
reward.



-Jesus
  

    
I'm one of the hosts of this conference.  I made the decision in consultation
with other involved parties to scribble your offensive, juvenlie and totally
off-topic interjections.
  

    
Thank you, <tnf>.
  

    
Out of respect for my hosts on the WELL, I've not commented thus far
on the ructions that have happened here. I feel a double
responsibility, to David, Reva and Cynthia as their guest, and to Geno
as the person who invited him to join in (at my request he was given a
guest account for the purpose).

It's a shame that David and others were brought to the point where
they felt it necessary to expunge some of Geno's messages.  

I also owe Geno an apology. He would never normally have found himself
on the WELL. It's not his habitat. I brought him here and told him to
be himself... Relentlessly and indefensibly puerile though his messages
were, that's what he was doing. 

Geno is an old friend. I know him well. Those messages, with their
silly insults and quotes, are absolutely "in character" - at least that
part of his character which was once described as "the bottomfish of
echomail". There is another side to him - which more and calmer
interaction might have revealed -  as a man who paradoxically has spent
most of his working life caring for other people, most recently the
extraordinary crew he calls the "rock tribe", a band of crack users who
came to him to sew up their knife wounds and plug their bullet holes.
Over the last few months I have had some powerful and sensitive pieces
of writing from him about this. How do such contradictions co-exist
within a single person? I don't know, but this what makes people
fascinating for me. It's why my book was about people not about "the
net".

I have to take responsibility for this fuck-up. It was my idea to
bring Geno and other people from the book here. I thought it might be
interesting for you.

Apart from Geno, some people who I hoped might join in were Sathyu
Sarangi from Bhopal, a guy who has devoted the last 15 years of his
life to the relief of Carbide's gas victims, and Alastair McIntosh,
whose recent adventures have included regaining ownership of the tiny
and remote Isle of Eigg for its inhabitants from an absentee laird.

They may yet show up, but what they will find remains to be seen.

Meanwhile there is something more urgent. Appeal for help. Tomorrow I
must drive to Dorset to see an old friend (we were at university
together) who is very ill with a condition called CADISIL about which
little is known. Seems to be a chromosomal disorder which shows up in
the mid forties in a series of blinding headaches that are often
mistaken for migraines. They are actually small strokes, and each one
destroys a little bit of the brain. My friend began suffering from this
only about three years ago, but is by now extremely ill. The doctors
can do nothing for him and the prognosis is bad, basically more
strokes, dementia and death. If anyone here has any knowledge that
could help, or knows anyone who might know something, please email me:
indra@well.com.
  

    
Best wishes to your friend.  Sorry I don't have anything concrete to
offer.

I enjoyed meeting Geno-- despite his claim that I'm a fucking moron, which
I'm not.  It is interesting to see people outside their natural habitats;
I hope more of your friends/characters show up.  I do think it's nice if
people who are visitors try to at least understand the rules and norms of
the places they visit, but I also understand that Geno is a person who is
all about ignoring rules and norms.
  

    

From my perspective, this topic is about Indra and his book. It's
tangentially about other people and other things, but the purpose is to
interview Indra about his book. When the other rah-rah starts, it deflects
from the purpose of the topic, it makes people disinclined to participate,
it is a nuisance for me (I put some considerable time into prepping for this
interview in a hurry), and it gets the interview lost in the shuffle. There
are so many wonderful facets to Indra's book. I'd like to see them get their
fair share of air time.

I hope your other friends find their way here, Indra, they have a lot to
offer.

Indra, you might want to put your health question over in the Health
conference. There is a lot of help available there from those very
knowledgable folks. If you don't have time, I'll copy it over there for you.
And we'll pick up the interview on Sunday since it sounds like you have your
hands full right now.
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
David, I love mixing people together. When we give parties, which we
try to do as often as money permits, we ask people from wildly
different backgrounds and throw them together. I don't really mind what
happens. It's usually fascinating, and fun.  

I think Sathyu is coming here, and will surely talk about what's
happening in Bhopal. A friend of mine, Lilith from the Vortex, is
coming (she is in the book too). She is an expert roleplayer, so if
anyone is interested in the finer points, she is the person to ask.

If Geno returns, why not get him talking about his life? There's that
interview with him I've been flagging, to give some background.
http://www.cybergypsies.com/geno-jesus.html  He knows a lot about the
hacker underground, if anyone is interested.

For myself, I wouldn't mind talking about writing. Maybe the
difficulty of introducing raw, live characters into a situation like
this just emphasises the role a book plays in interpreting them.
  

    
Lily! you made it! xxxx
  

    
indra was slipped by the very person he mentioned in #119!

Welcome to inkwell.vue, lilith-ann. How do you feel about the way you were
portrayed in The Cybergypsies? Did you do any collaboration with him on
the way you were presented?
  

    
and I was slipped by indra. sheesh!
  

    <scribbled>
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
It is true. People shouldn't confuse the character, Lilith, on the
Vortex, with the person who plays her. Two quite different kettles of
bouillabaise.