Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    


I made the excursion downtown last week and bought the book.
Am very happy with it. I read from random starting places
and then decided to start at the beginning. My demand for
books is very inelastic. I get them if I can afford to do so,
or not. As the case may be.

I'm not sure if the reason I like the book so much
is the style and the "way with words" displayed by the author.
Or if it is his mental temperament - - his way of looking at
things and approaching life - - his questions and compulsions.
Or the story itself.  I never really thought of these things
being separate, anyway.

But why I bring it up -- usually I read for ideas
and ideas alone. I am not a person who enjoys fiction much.
Except to read out loud to my son. Or to listen to it as a narration.
And of course this book isn't fiction!

The imagery in this book is brought to bear in such a way
that the story is enlivened.

It seems to me that <indra> has the ability to enliven the story
past the point that I generally experience my direct world!
It's funny, and I am certain that those who study fiction
have thought of this, but storytelling and image-making
may enhance direct experience of real life.
(Yes, <indra>, I call it "real life." No matter what
is the catechism that you have rehearsed.)

(Maybe it is the "real" world because it holds within it the dimension
of fantasy. I mean, What is the fantasy realm of the Vortex?)

I also thought of Luna and why she doesn't have a soul.
(It has to do with Homunculus.)

Do you think, <Indra>, that your experience with role-playing
has helped your abilities as a writer? Did you learn from
that activity how to craft an image so that it comes alive?

I have only thought, before now, about instances in which
fantasy and image making take away from direct experience.
Or just function as amusement. (Nothing wrong with that.)
Whereas your example of the Vortex and your facility
with image making seems to me to give me a counterexample.

As I practiced yoga for many years my practice was to control
my mind and thoughts to a great degree. "What is experience
without mediation by language?" This was the interesting
question for me in the past. And so I have never given much
free rein at all to my imagination and still don't.
It's a mental habit that still inheres. I resist fantasy.

Even if I actually act out a fantasy I like to act it out and
generally don't like to discuss it beforehand or to experience
it in words alone. For me a fantasy is always at least a
rehearsal for life.

(But then again I *do* love to read about drug-taking [psychedelics
and opiates, etc.], mountain climbing, and trading [commodities and
currency markets], but would never do those things myself).

It really does seem that _cybergypsies_ has a tie-in with
the particular autumnal season in which I find myself immersed.
Last night Halloween. Autumn is connected with the
underworld and the dead.  Why do I connect that with Cybergypsies?

Anyway, it's been an amazingly splendid autumn in the
Catskills this year. (And still is.) And <feste>,
if you've enjoyed the posts you'll enjoy the book. It's a match
for the beautiful and magical season. Thank you <indra>.
  

    

Wrote the above before I saw what you posted.

Gee I'm glad Alastair corroborated my story.
I would've *really* felt stupid if he hadn't remembered
  

    

Last night i saw a magician perform for Halloween.
He did amazing juggling etc but his schtick was funny.
Not polite to the audience. In fact a bit in their face.
On the edge of socially acceptable.

It reminded me of Jesus Slut Fucker.
He amazes the crowd with his accomplishments at coding.
but his patter is challenging..

I think of it as a performance.

Perhaps he feels he is so much better at coding than others
that he can therefore get away with acting out an
entertaining (or not so entertaining depending on one's
perspective) persona.

don't mean to speak about you as though you are not here JSF.
  

    


To tell you the truth vasudha, I don't code that much anymore. The FBI
kind of insists that I leave it alone. The FBI showed up on my door
step during the Melissa scare and again after their Web site was hit.
During the Melissa hum-drum they were actually nice and took me out to
eat, I can never resist a free meal regardless of the poor company,
(much like a British gentleman that way I am). Anyway, I have written
a few things (I sent them to Indra, but almost no one else) but mostly
the FBI has retired me.



-Jesus

P.S. Just for the record, I had nothing to do with either Melissa or
the Justice Department's Web site being taken down.
  

    


Well. potentially very good at it then.

Why don't you ask them to hire you?

Isn't that what the lunch was about?
  

    
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It appears that our interviewer, <lizabeth>, has quit the interview,
for what reason I am not sure, except that apparently it wasn't going
the way she had wanted. So I'd like to thank her for her efforts over
the past few days, and express my regret for anything that may have
annoyed her.

We still have three official days of the interview left, so I have
asked Geno Paris <jesuschrist> to roleplay <lizabeth> for these last
days. I hope he will be taking over as interviewer, a role for which he
is eminently suited. He knows the book, The Cybergypsies, inside out -
literally - since he appears in it more than a few times.

Geno also has plenty of experience as a conference moderator, as I
hope the following excerpt will demonstrate.
  

    

Indra, I'm still here. I asked my last question 1-2 days ago and then let
the discussion go on without interrupting too much. I will be here through
this Friday. I have more questions coming up tonight.
  

    <hidden>
  

    

Why do you find it funny?
  

    
I have hidden post #159 because for some people reading this conference in
our text-based interface, there are some characters in that post that
scramble their ASCII set. If you wish to read post #159 and you are using a
Web browser, click on the word "hidden." For picospan users, type o 159 at
the respond prompt. If your ASCII set gets scrambled you will have to reset
your screen.
  

    

Okay, first I want to thank Indra for sending me lizabeth's underwear
so I can wear it and get into the right frame of role playing to assume
her role. I would like to comment that no amount of washing would get
the brown and yellow stains from out of these leather thingies, but
that's okay...I guess.

...ARE YOU SURE SUCKING ON THIS WILL MAKE ME SMARTER?
-SARA GORDON (VIRUS RESEARCHER) TO JESUS SLUT FUCKER

I want to ask you about the episode in Ireland. You mentioned a time
when you thought about molesting a counter girl. Do you still get these
urges? Have you acted on them? Do you have any pictures of the
molestation?

A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR MAKES THE MEDICINE GO DOWN!
-L. BORGIA

Continuing on your trip to Ireland did you really use those electrical
devices on suspected terrorists balls? Does the IRA still have a price
on your head? Is it true that Tony Blair has sodomized Prince
William?

DON'T WORRY MR. CHICKEN I'LL BE GENTLE <SNICKER>!
-DAVID GANS TO HIS FEATHERED FRIEND

Do you still play Shades? Inquiring minds want to know.



-Leather Lizzie aka Jesus, Son of Gawd
  

    
I don't know.
  

    
Geno, in Shades, if you are attacked, your 'stamina' drops. If it hits
zero, you are dead and lose half your points. If you have spent months
and hundreds of pounds building up a character, this is a bummer. Most
Shades rows (there is one going on currently) are about this.

The way to restore your stamina is by touching, or grabbing, a
'mobile', ie a game-generated character called The Strange Little Girl.
Make of this what you will.

When my Shades-mania was at its height - this means playing between
six to eight hours a day - I was driving to London one day and realised
that the tank was nearly empty. So I pulled into a service station and
said to my horrified wife, "Got to restam the car. Just going to grab
the girl." 

She thought I meant the girl behind the cash register. This is the
long and short of it.
  

    
In Ireland I only ever met ex-terrorists, but I did meet a few of
those - from both sides. The most frightening experience I had was
being driven through Ballymurphy when a car behind began hooting and
flashing its lights. It followed us into a narrow street and then we
found ourselves stopped by a concrete wall (the so-called 'Peace Wall')
that just ran right across the road. We were forced to stop and I
confess I was expecting to be shot. But it turned out to be a lad come
to collect his girlfriend from one of the houses adjacent. He was just
trying to make her get a move on. 

As for Tony Blair, I don't think his tastes lie in that direction. For
that you need to look to Michael Portillo, the unpleasant Tory
candidate for the forthcoming Kensington & Chelsea by-election. But
Tony has had a run-in with Prince William and his dad, who apparently
went fox-hunting at the weekend. The PM was furious, because he is just
about to introduce legislation to ban fox-hunting.
  

    
Anyone can play Shades. telnet://games.world.co.uk or alternatively go
to http://www.games.world.co.uk.

I occasionally go there, but rarely for more than a few minutes.
  

    


<sigh>

I have tried to do an interview under some very trying circumstances. I may
not be the best the Inkwell.vue has ever seen, but I did my best. I was
asked to do this a scant 10 days before it started; I received the book less
than a week before it started. I have done, I believe, my best.

Indra, I don't know why you have posted that I left the interview or why you
have not responded. I can only conclude that you wish to handle this
interview in your own way. This is more than fine with me.

I have a strong philosophical disagreement with the Well in the way that
they allow people with guest accounts to insult paying customers, even if
those insults are tired and dated by more than a decade, even if I've seen
better insults on old teen war boards back in the 80s. None of this is
cutting edge or cool or an exciting landscape of the mind. It's juvenile at
best. Nevertheless, I tried to work with this despite the fact that your
guest has promised *twice* to cool it, and has both times broken his word.

No more. I won't be part of it. I've learned a valuable lesson today about
how the Well operates that I'm not going into here at this point, but most
surely will at another time.

Indra, you have some interesting things to say and have written a rather
interesting book. I wish you well.
  

    
You did an excellent job, <lizabeth>. You got some interesting
info out of our guest and his friends.

*I* would have given up days ago. Too many flashbacks to
situationist's tactics in student politics in the late sixties ...
  

    
Mostly, I'm afraid Indra's friends don't make the best advertisement for his
book.  "Do I want to spend _more_ time with this guy?" I ask myself.

I wish the book well, too, but it looks like its author and I find different
things compelling.
  

    

I didn't make one thing clear -- I got nothing but support that displayed
itself through action by the hosts of this conference, and thank them for
that.
  

    
The Cybergypsies truly is an amazing book and Indra an extremely talented
writer. Some of the "characters" we have brought aboard for this interview
are, indeed, quite startling in the context of this conference, which is
generally less rambunctious. However, these startling characters are
a big part of Indra's book, so it made sense to invite them to participate,
to give virtual flesh to the bones of the autobiographical tale Indra has
woven.

I'd like to thank lizabeth for launching this interview. She agreed to do
this on very short notice, setting aside paying work to read Indra's book
and prepare for this. I know you put a lot of effort into this, lizabeth,
and I appreciate all the groundwork you have laid here. I understand this
has not been the interview you expected to be a part of and you've really
been a trouper. Thank you.
  

    
lizabeth slipped...
  

    

It may not be what you had planned, lizabeth, but I thought it was
mostly very interesting.  Some of it was over the line.  And the attempt
to recreate the actual online conversation didn't work very well at all -
because the headers were difficult to comprehend, mostly - but it was an
interesting experiment.  I have always wondered what it would be like if a
single topic could be linked to a different online system and now I have
an idea.

At first, I really liked it when indra was talking about the book and the
characters in it and then suddenly they showed up.  That was kind of cool
in a breaking-the-fourth-wall kind of way.  I was somewhat startled when
the guests proved to be less than well-mannered, but it's certainly not
the first time we've seen folks behave like this on the WELL.  It's just
kind of embarassing that it's happening in a conference that's visible to
the entire Web should it choose to tune in.

But mostly it just demonstrates something that happens more often than
not:  you can't always open a topic and expect it do what you want it to
do.  And, to be honest, in spite of the way it turned out, I would never
have known that it wasn't what you planned if you hadn't expressed your
disappointment with it.

No complaints here.
  

    
Lizabeth, I am sincerely sorry that you are offended and upset, but it
was getting a little lonely here, so I ask you to forgive me. I
thought your questions were intelligent and searching. I wish we could
have had more of a conversation.

One of the oddest aspects of doing this is writing long posts and
getting little response from the ether (and I am told that there have
been thousands of hits on this topic from silent readers). It feels
like talking to yourself - and when you are also talking *about*
yourself and your work, it is somewhat uncomfortable. Like having mites
under the skin. Having said which, I have thoroughly enjoyed this
experience and have no problems at all with anyone who took part,
including those who slagged me off. Thank you all.

To anyone who has been seriously offended, bored, or otherwise pissed
off by me and Geno and the rest I'd say, yeah, you are right. Don't buy
the book. You'd hate it and it costs almost as much as a meal at
Girasole in Philadelphia ("occasionally obnoxious service but good
food").

  
  

    
Well, most of the people who can read this topic can't directly post in it--
world-readable, not world-postable.

I'm way too cheap to go to expensive restaurants!  I'd rather spend money on
books.