editors: Jim Esch and Stacy Tartar
Copyright # 1993 by Jim Esch and Stacy Tartar
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONTENTS
FISH STORY
by Frank B. Ford
POEM
by Michael Morell
NIAGARA
by Mark Twain
FOUCAULT AND THE VALIDITY OF THE OEUVRE: AN
EXCHANGE BETWEEN ZARATHSTRA AND DIONYSIUS
compiled by Jim Esch, Jim Morris
EXCERPTS FROM THE COMPLETE SAYINGS OF JESUS
by Paul Ford, Steve Pav
THREE POEMS
by Jim Morris
NOTEWORTHY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FISH STORY
by Frank B. Ford
Like other fish--if, as you said, you really wish to learn--I do not like
metaphors. So, as I said, I am a fish.
It is a hard thing to explain to you: we simply are, and therefore need no
figures of speech.
As to the current spate of fish suicides, one must discuss the
deteriorating mental health of the majority of fish since 1982, and even
before. I have lost too many of my friends, haddocks, tuna...dolphins
being the latest. Unlike those of men, these labels are not meant to
prejudice or denigrate. The brotherhood among
fish is legendary.
We eat each other you say? We do what is decreed by The Great Fish, no
more, no less. Oh there are wilful renegades as everywhere in the
animal...kingdom, so-called.
And those of us who kill to eat in the natural order of things don't write
books full of circular rhetoric, or make films rationalizing acts of
brutality and sexuality--where sometimes the difference between the two is
hard to tell. No sleaze, academic or pseudo-artistic,
among fish.
By the way, I never really found out whether we are included in that lofty
designation of Animal Kingdom by you and your species--your own just fits
at a certain place in a certain chart like anything else, no better or
worse, more complex than some, less so than others--whether you and all
your professors know it or not.
We fish have our own ways to classify life but it is both too complex and
too intuitive for you to, excuse the expression,
fathom.
At any rate, our solidarity all but overwhelms any tiny tiny antisocial
percentage among the untold trillions of fish in the waters of this planet.
What if I told you there are as many fish as
stars!
At any rate--back to fish suicides--I have seen it many times, this decline
in the power to think clearly: you do too many unfish things. Then you
kill yourself in water full of garbage and medical waste, or they get you
with some silly lure, rubbery worm of no natural color which you would have
laughed at, herky-jerking by in your strong and healthy and clear-thinking
days.
Hook you! I know you habitually say some such taunting thing, slightly
different and probably just as sick. Well just think of yourself with a
hook through your cheek. And yet such horror is not given a second
thought.
I told a# lobster "You know, they say that when they plunge you into
boiling water you don't feel much, your nerves being so primitive." That's
what I told him. He cried and cried.
I guess that doesn't take much sensitivity. Of course I know that the
image of a lobster crying is ludicrous beyond ludicrous to you. Not dreamt
of in your philosophy.
I won't go on. I ask only that you merely attempt to look at it from our
side. Just this once.
Oh if you could only be a fish for one luminous,
cutting second!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
POEM
by Michael Morell
EVERYWHERE
If you touch me here,
I will feel it here.
If you touch me there,
I will feel it there.
But if you touch me
in that deepest, darkest,
brightest, widest place,
I will feel it everywhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NIAGARA
by Mark Twain
EDITORS NOTE: This story comes from SKETCHES NEW AND OLD, Copyright 1903,
Samuel Clemens. Originally written about 1871, this text was placed in the
Public Domain in May 1993. We retrieved it off the Internet Wiretap, an
online electronic text service that reproduces
public domain literature.
NIAGARA FALLS is a most enjoyable place of resort. The hotels are
excellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant. The opportunities for
fishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact, they are not even
equaled elsewhere. Because, in other localities, certain places in the
streams are much better than others; but at Niagara one place is just as
good as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, and so
there is no use in your walking five miles to fish, when you can depend on
being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages of this state of
things have never heretofore been properly
placed before the public.
The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasant
and none of them fatiguing. When you start out to "do" the Falls you first
drive down about a mile, and pay a small sum for the privilege of looking
down from a precipice into the narrowest part of the Niagara river. A rail-
way "cut" through a hill would be as comely if it had the angry river
tumbling and foaming through its bottom. You can descend a staircase here a
hundred and fifty feet down, and stand at the edge of the water. After you
have done it, you will wonder why you did it; but you will then be too
late.
The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way, how he saw the
little steamer, Maid of the Mist, descend the fearful rapids--how first one
paddle-box was out of sight behind the raging billows and then the other,
and at what point it was that her smokestack toppled overboard, and where
her planking began to break and part asunder--and how she did finally live
through the trip, after accomplishing the incredible feat of traveling
seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeen minutes, I have
really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary, anyhow. It is worth
the price of admission to hear the guide tell the story nine times in
succession to different parties, and never miss a word or alter a sentence
or a gesture.
Then you drive over to Suspension Bridge, and divide your misery between
the chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, and the
chances of having the railway train overhead smashing down on to you.
Either possibility is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together,
they amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness.
On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long ranks of
photographers standing guard behind their cameras, ready to make an
ostentatious frontispiece of you and your decaying ambulance, and your
solemn crate with a hide on it, which you are expected to regard in the
light of a horse, and a diminished and unimportant background of sublime
Niagara; and a great many people have the incredible effrontery or the
native depravity to aid and abet this sort
of crime.
Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may see stately pictures
of papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and Sis, or a couple of country cousins,
all smiling vacantly, and all disposed in studied and uncomfortable
attitudes in their carriage, and all looming up in their awe-inspiring
imbecility before the snubbed and diminished presentment of that majestic
presence whose ministering spirits are the rainbows, whose voice is the
thunder, whose awful front is veiled in clouds, who was monarch here dead
and forgotten ages before this hackful of small reptiles was deemed
temporarily necessary to fill a crack in the world's unnoted myriads, and
will still be monarch here ages and decades of ages after they shall have
gathered themselves to their blood relations, the other worms, and been
mingled with the unremembering dust.
There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to display
one's marvelous insignificance in a good strong light, but it requires a
sort of superhuman self-complacency to enable
one to do it.
When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall till you are satisfied
you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the new Suspension
Bridge, and follow up the bank to where they
exhibit the Cave of the Winds.
Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my clothing, and
put on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque, but
not beautiful. A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flight of
winding stairs, which wound and wound, and still kept on winding long after
the thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long before it had
begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down under the precipice, but
still considerably above the level of the river.
We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our persons
shielded from destruction by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clung with
both hands--not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to. Presently
the descent became steeper, and the bridge flimsier, and sprays from the
American Fall began to rain down on us in fast increasing sheets that soon
became blinding, and after that our progress was mostly in the nature of
groping. Now a furious wind began to rush out from behind the waterfall,
which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, and scatter us on the
rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that I wanted to go home;
but it was too late. We were almost under the monstrous wall of water
thundering down from above, and speech was in vain in the midst of such a
pitiless crash of sound.
In another moment the guide disappeared behind the deluge, and, bewildered
by the thunder, driven helplessly by the wind, and smitten by the arrowy
tempest of rain, I followed. All was darkness. Such a mad storming,
roaring, and bellowing of warring wind and water never crazed my ears
before. I bent my head, and seemed to receive the Atlantic on my back. The
world seemed going to de- struction. I could not see anything, the flood
poured down so savagely. I raised my head, with open mouth, and the most of
the American cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung a leak now I had
been lost. And at this moment I discovered that the bridge had ceased, and
we must trust for a foothold to the slippery and precipitous rocks. I never
was so scared before and survived it. But we got through at last, and
emerged into the open day, where we could stand in front of the laced and
frothy and seething world of descending water, and look at it. When I saw
how much of it there was, and how fearfully in earnest it was, I was sorry
I had gone behind it.
The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I love to
read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read of his
inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain and
forest, and his general nobility of character, and his stately metaphorical
manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the dusky maiden, and the
picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. Especially the picturesque
pomp of his dress and accoutrements. When I found the shops at Niagara
Falls full of dainty Indian beadwork, and stunning moccasins, and equally
stunning toy figures representing human beings who carried their weapons in
holes bored through their arms and bodies, and had feet shaped like a pie,
I was filled with emotion. I knew that now, at last, I was going to come
face to face with the noble Red Man.
A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array of
curiosities were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about the
Falls, and that they were friendly, and it would not be dangerous to speak
to them. And sure enough, as I approached the bridge leading over to Luna
Island, I came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under a tree,
diligently at work on a bead reticule. He wore a slouch hat and brogans,
and had a short black pipe in his mouth. Thus does the baneful contact with
our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pomp which is so natural
to the Indian when far removed from us in his native haunts. I addressed
the relic as follows:
"Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a- Whack happy? Does the great
Speckled Thunder sigh for the warpath, or is his heart contented with
dreaming of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest? Does the mighty
Sachem yearn to drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied to make
bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface? Speak, sublime relic of
bygone grandeur--venerable ruin, speak!'
The relic said:
"An' is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that ye'd be takin' for a dirty Injin,
ye drawlin', lanternjawed, spider-legged divil! By the piper that played
before Moses, I'll ate ye!"
I went away from there.
By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon a gentle
daughter of the aborigines in fringed and beaded buckskin moccasins and
leggins, seated on a bench with her pretty wares about her. She had just
carved out a wooden chief that had a strong family resemblance to a
clothespin, and was now boring a hole through his abdomen to put his bow
through. I hesitated a moment, and then addressed
her:
"Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing Tadpole lonely?
Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race, and the
vanished glory of her ancestors? Or does her sad spirit wander afar toward
the hunting-grounds whither her brave Gobbler-of-the-Lightnings is gone?
Why is my daughter silent? Has she aught against
the paleface stranger?"
The maiden said:
"Faix, an' is it Biddy Malone ye dare to be callin' names? Lave this, or
I'll shy your lean carcass over the cataract,
ye sniveling blaggard!"
I adjourned from there also.
"Confound these Indians!" I said. "They told me they were tame; but, if
appearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the warpath."
I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I came upon
a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making wampum and
moccasins, and addressed them in the language
of friendship:
"Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and High
Muck-a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you!
You, Beneficent Polecat--you, Devourer of Mountains--you, Roaring
Thundergust--you, Bully Boy with a Glass eye--the paleface from beyond the
great waters greets you all! War and pestilence have thinned your ranks and
destroyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain modern
expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, have depleted your
purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the property of others has
gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simple innocence,
has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper. Trading for
forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy and tomahawk your
families, has played the everlasting mischief with the picturesque pomp of
your dress, and here you are, in the broad light of the nineteenth century,
gotten up like the ragtag and bobtail of the purlieus of New York. For
shame! Remember your ancestors! Recall their mighty deeds! Remember
Uncas!--and Red Jacket!--and Hole in the Day!--and Whoopdedoodledo! Emulate
their achievements! Unfurl yourselves under my banner, noble savages,
illustrious gutter-snipes--"
"Down wid him!" "Scoop the blaggard!" "Burn him!" "Hang him!" "Dhround
him!"
It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flash in
the air of clubs, brick-bats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasins--a single
flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of them in the
same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me. They tore
half the clothes off me; they broke my arms and legs; they gave me a thump
that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee like a saucer;
and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and to add insult to injury,
they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I
got wet.
About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vest caught
on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could get loose. I
finally fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at the foot of the
Fall, whose celled and bubbly masses towered up several inches above my
head. Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round and round in it
forty-four times--chasing a chip and gaining on it--each round trip a half
mile--reaching for the same bush on the bank forty-four times, and just
exactly missing it by a hair's-breadth every
time.
At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipe
in his mouth, and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept the
other on the match, while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind.
Presently a puff of wind blew it out. The next
time I swept around he said:
"Got a match?"
"Yes; in my other vest. Help me out, please."
"Not for Joe."
When I came round again, I said:
"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning man, but will you
explain this singular conduct of yours?"
"With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account. I can wait for
you. But I wish I had a match."
I said: "Take my place, and I'll go and
get you one.
He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a coldness between
us, and from that time forward I avoided him. It was my idea, in case
anything happened to me, to so time the occurrence as to throw my custom
into the hands of the opposition coroner over
on the American side.
At last a policeman came along, and arrested me for disturbing the peace by
yelling at people on shore for help. The judge fined me, but I had the
advantage of him. My money was with my pantaloons and my pantaloons were
with the Indians.
Thus I escaped. I am now lying in a very critical condition. At least I am
lying anyway--critical or not critical. I am hurt all over, but I cannot
tell the full extent yet, because the doctor is not done taking inventory.
He will make out my manifest this evening. However, thus far he thinks only
sixteen of my wounds are fatal. I don't mind
the others.
Upon regaining my right mind, I said:
"It is an awful savage tribe of Indians that do the bead work and moccasins
for Niagara Falls, doctor. Where are they from?"
"Limerick, my son."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FOUCAULT AND THE VALIDITY OF AN OEUVURE: AN EXCHANGE BETWEEN ZARATHUSTRA
AND DIONYSIUS
compiled by Jim Esch and Jim Morris
NOTE: The following is an edited transcript of correspondence between the
two authors assuming the personnas of Zarathustra and Dionysus. The
dialogue took place in the summer of 1993.
ZARATHUSTRA: Hey yo, DEEP MAN. I thought, in light of our discussions about
the nature of electronic text, and even our efforts to establish a
Joe/Stacy oeuvre [1], you might be interested in this passage from Michel
Foucault's book, The Archaeology of Knowledge
[2].
Foucault is trying to reveal and dispense with certain notions of
"continuity" that tend to level the workings of difference, discontinuity,
rupture, etc. By continuity, he means notions like TRADITION, INFLUENCE,
DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION, SPIRIT (spirit of an
age, etc.).
"But the unities that must be suspended above all are those that emerge
in the most immediate way: those of the book and the oeuvre. At first
sight,it would seem that one could not abandon these unities without
extreme artificiality. Are they not given in the most definite way? There
is the material individualization of the book, which occupies a
determined space, which has an economic value, and which itself
indicates, by a number of signs, the limits of its beginning and its end;
and there is the establishment of an oeuvre, which we recognize and
delimit by attributing a certain number of texts to an author. And yet as
soon as one looks at the matter a little more closely the difficulties
begin. The material unity of a book? Is this the same in the case of
an anthology of poems, a collection of posthumous fragments,.... In
other words, is not the material unity of the volume a weak, accessory
unity in relation to the discursive unity of which it is the support?
But is this discursive unity itself homogeneous and uniformly applicable?
A novel by Stendhal and a novel by Dostoevsky do not have the same
relation of individuality as that between two novels belonging to
Balzac's cycle LA COMEDIE HUMAINE; and the relation between Balzac's
novels is not the same as that existing between Joyce's ULYSEES and the
ODYSSEY. The frontiers of a book are never clear cut: beyond the title,
the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal
configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of
references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node
within a network. And this network of references is not the same in the
case of a mathematical treatise, a textual commentary, a historical
account, and an episode in a novel cycle; the unity of the book, even in
the sense of a group of relations, cannot be regarded as identical in
each case. The book is not simply the object that one holds in one's
hands;...its unity is variable and relative. As soon as one questions
that unity, it loses its self-evidence; it indicates itself, constructs
itself, only on the basis of a complex field
of discourse.
"The problems raised by oeuvre are even more difficult. Yet, at first
sight, what could be more simple? A collection of texts that can be
designated by the sign of a proper name.... [D]oes the name of an author
designate in the same way a text that he has published under his name, a
text that he has presented under a pseudonym, another found after his
death in the form of an unpublished draft, and another that is merely a
collection of jottings, a notebook? The establishment of a complete
oeuvre presupposes a number of choices that are difficult to justify or
even to formulate: is it enough to add to the texts published by the
author those that he intended for publication but which remained
unfinished by the fact of his death? Should one also include all his
sketches and first drafts, with all their corrections and crossings out?
Should one add sketches that he himself abandoned? And what status should
be given to letters, notes, reported conversations, transcriptions of
what he said made by those present at the time, in short, to that vast
mass of verbal traces left by an individual at his death, and which speak
in an endless confusion so many different languages? In any case, the
name 'Mallarme' does not refer in the same way to his themes (translation
exercises from French into English), his translations of Edgar Allan Poe,
his poems, and his replies to questionnaires; similarly, the same
relation does not exist between the name Nietzsche on the one hand and
the youthful autobiographies, the scholastic dissertations, the
philological articles, Zarathustra, Ecce Homo, the letters, the last
postcards signed 'Dionysos' or 'Kaiser Nietzsche', and the innumerable
notebooks with their jumble of laundry bills and sketches for aphorisms.
In fact, if one speaks, so undiscriminately and unreflectingly of an
author's oeuvre, it is because one imagines it to be defined by a certain
expressive function. One is admitting that there must be a level...at
which the oeuvre emerges, in all its fragments, even the smallest, most
inessential ones, as the expression of the thought, the experience, the
imagination, or the unconscious of the author, or, indeed, of the
historical determinations that operated upon him. But it is at once
apparent that such a unity, far from being given imely, is the
result of an operation; that this operation is interpretative...; and
that the operation that determines the opus, in its unity, and
consequently the oeuvre itself, will not be the same in the case of the
author of LE THEATRE ET SON DOUBLE (Artaud) and the author of the
TRACTATUS (Wittgenstein), and therefore when one speaks of an oeuvre in
each case one is using the word in a different sense. The oeuvre can be
regarded neither as an immediate unity, nor a a certain unity, nor as a
homogeneous unity."
DIONYSUS: Zarathustra, so by dispensing with the notion that a book or
oeuvre has some kind of special unity we can better understand the
evolution of human knowledge. I think I got that right. It's therefore
useless to try and make a set of CDs with all the best Joe/Stacy stuff on
it. At least it's useless to do it and call it "complete" in any way. We
have to include the complete Dylan, Beatles, Strawbs, Procol Harum, Moody
Blues, Genesis, Chicago, Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Bartok, Floyd, Townsend,
that guy who plays "jack and diane" catalogs to even begin to scratch the
surface of completeness. As a matter of fact, we'd have to include the
whole of western civilization on the same CD, completely cross referenced
and.....wait a minute...
When all human knowledge and thought has been digitized and available on
the World Wide Web (5-10 years) maybe it would work! As we navigate
through cyberspace we could be listening to say.... "Living in a bubble"3
and with a slight shift of our pinky finger jump to other songs by Stacy
about living or bubbles. Then we could expand on the term "living" and
find other S.T. songs about dying and existence. Moving further along we
do an audio/visual scan of all recorded Joe or Jim/Stacy songs having to do
with bubbles or other nebulous, spherical objects as in "say goodnight, I
had a -ball-" from "It's Too Long to Make you See.".4 As we travel along
we take a slightly different course and focus on instrumentation -
specifically the distorted electric guitar. A picture of Les Paul appears
with the text of his biography, along with audio clips from a 1972
interview with David Frost. "See also, Link Ray" is noted below the
picture. Instead of reviewing the entire history of electronics we decide
instead to find out more about bubbles, or perhaps we need more info about
Stacy and her life (pictures of Orange Street, Lucy, Romania, Camden,
Levick street, the Record Cellar; complete written works of poetry, blood
type.) And so on.
I could see getting a better sense of continuity with this type of
interface. Still it would be highly subjective; the information we retrieve
would be based on our own whims and prejudices. Hmmm....I guess Michel is
right. It's an absolutely hopeless and more importantly useless endevor.
We all are one. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, you can't step in the
same river twice, a man's maturity consists in finding again the
seriousness one had as a child - at play.
ZARATHUSTRA: What IF all discourse shared the same medium [digital,
right?], would one conceivably be able then to link all statements to all
other statements? What kind of mother-of-all-computers would that require?
We'd need to build it on the moon probably.
But what's all the fuss about?
"We must ask ourselves what purpose is ultimately served by this
suspension of all the accepted unities.... In fact, the systematic
erasure of all given unities enables us first of all to restore to the
statement the specificity of its occurrence, and to show that
discontinuity is one of those great accidents that create cracks not only
in the geology of history, but also in the simple fact of the statement;
it emerges in its historical irruption; what we try to examine is the
incision that it makes, that irreducible--and very often tiny--
emergence. However banal it may be, however unimportant its consequences
may appear to be, however quickly it may be forgotten after is
appearance, however little heard or however badly deciphered we may
suppose it to be, a statement is always an event that neither the
language (langue) nor the meaning can quite exhaust. It is certainly a
strange event: first, because on the one hand it is linked to the
gesture of writing or to the articulation of speech, and also on the
other hand it opens up to itself a residual existence in the field of a
memory, or in the materiality of manuscripts, books, or any other form of
recording; secondly, because, like every event, it is unique, yet subject
to repetition, transformation, and reactivation; thirdly, because it its
linked not only to the situations that provoke it, and to the
consequences that it gives rise to, but at the same time, and in
accordance with a quite different modality, to the statements that
precede and follow it.
"But if we isolate...the occurences of the statement/event, it is not in
order to spread over everything a dust of facts. It is in order to be
sure that this occurrence is not linked with synthesizing operations of a
purely psychological kind (the intention of the author, the form of his
mind, the rigour of his thought, the themes that obsess him, the project
that traverses his existence and gives it meaning) and to be able to
grasp other forms of regularity, other types of relations. Relations
between statements (even if the author is unaware of them; even if the
statements do not have the same author; even if the authors were unaware
of each other's existence); relations between groups of statements thus
established (even if these groups do not concern the same, or even
adjacent, fields; even if they do not possess the same formal level; even
if they are not the locus of assignable exchanges) ; relations between
statements and groups of statements and events of a quite different kind
(technical, economic, social, political). To reveal in all its purity
the space in which discursive events are deployed is...to leave oneself
free to describe the interplay of relations
within it and outside it.
In other words, he's warming up his humanistic wrecking ball.
Does it strike you that Foucault is trying to work-out some of the ideas
that Nietzsche started? Granted, the style of writing is much less
poetic/entertaining/bilous. But this whole questioning of established
unities and truths, with the double aim of establishing a new horizon of
truth, or maybe demolishing truth in favor of extended play seems to me
akin to Nietzsche's philosophy. SeeThe Geneology of Morals . After all we
are fruits of his thought, aren't we? His pen has liberated us to roam the
paths of discourse, hasn't it? Are we not masks to be worn by different
persons in different places? The the Greeks, Nietzsche, Jim Esch, Jim
Morris, the reader? Once we have designated ourselves in words we become
something else.
Who needs such truth? Such legendary soothsaying? From whence these prisons
of thought?
NOTES
[1]
Joe is the name of a musical group featuring the two Jims. Stacy refers
to co-editor Stacy Tartar, who joined them around 1987-88. Esch and Tartar
have recorded together in addition to their
collaboration with Morris.
[2]
All Foucault quotes come from The Archaeology Of Knowledge & The
Discourse On Language. Trans. A.m. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon,
1972.
[3]
Song on Jim/Stacy tape Beef Stew, 1990.
[4]
Song on Joe tape Joe II.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPTS FROM THE COMPLETE SAYINGS OF JESUS
according to Paul Ford and Steve Pav
This is based on the fact that books titled "The Complete Sayings of Jesus"
certainly don't include _everything_ the man said, nor does the Bible. So
we're filling in the gaps:
"Hey! How many shekels for this fish?"
"Excuse me...pardon me...excuse me...sorry...coming
through."
"Hi!"
"I like those sandals on you, Peter. They
bring out your eyes."
"Anyone got leprosy?"
"Pork? It's my last supper and we have
PORK?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THREE POEMS
by Jim Morris
untitled
Outside my window there is a tree
with its branches reaching toward my room
and every hour I'm awake I spend dreaming
of the day that I'll feel those arms around
me.
Ever since I first noticed this, each week
It seems a month away
Now it's been over a year and I'm still
hoping for the same thing
It takes him years to move
Soon it seems his arms will be
pounding against my walls wanting to
break in. And I probably won't be here
I'll be somewhere else with
someother window and someother tree
SANTA CLAUS
Bring your bags to me
And empty the contents so
it all spills on you.
BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE
Raygun and Bush
Boom! Whoosh!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTEWORTHY
This marks our first issue of Sparks west of the Mississippi. Now that our
move is complete, we're expanding our distribution to include our new home
base as well as the Philadelphia area. As always, we are seeking quality
submissions, so what are you waiting for?
EMAIL us at Jim.Esch@launchpad.unc.edu
We are also working towards electronic distribution over the internet. This
version of the magazine would be in ASCII text format, no graphics,
available worldwide by electronic mail. If you have access to the internet,
you may request a copy by sending a message to
'Jim.Esch@launchpad.unc.edu'.
GOVERNMENT ADDRESSES
You may want to store these addresses in a safe place and bother these
folks when they try to sell off your rights
and liberties....
THE WHITE HOUSE
President Bill Clinton
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1414 Switchboard
(202) 456-1111 Comment line
(202) 456-2883 FAX 1
(202) 456-2461 FAX 2
president@whitehouse.gov
THE CABINET
COMMERCE
Ronald H. Brown
Department of Commerce
14th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20230
(202) 482-4901
DEFENSE
Les Aspin
Department of Defense
The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
(703) 697-5737
STATE
Warren Christopher
Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520
(202) 647-6575
(202) 647-7120 FAX
JUSTICE
Janet Reno
Attorney General
Department of Justice
10th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
(202) 514-2007
(202) 514-5331 FAX
TREASURY
Lloyd Bentsen
Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20220
(202) 622-2960
(202) 622-1999 FAX
FEDERAL INFORMATION CENTER (800) 726-4995
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.