Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.20.1703020057180.12085@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: the 1999
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2017 01:00:45 -0500 (EST)
the 1999 http://www.alansondheim.org/bctrip0149.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/machinelife.mp3 (shakuhachi) the edited chown 11/19/1999 11:59:59 my own, this is mine, this is really mine, this isn't yours, i invented it, it's mine to do what i want with 8 chown 745 own 9 man chown 10 h 11 help own 12 h 13 who own 14 whence -v own, lovely my own my chown, help own, help own me, my "very own place", 15 you are "my very own" 16 i "own the alphabet" 17 this is my style why do you use it, why don't you ever comment on it, why don't you talk to me, why do you leave me hanging like a dead man in a gully, why do you leave me tethered like a beautiful russian ballet dancer pirouetting, why do you leave me lusting like an energized daishin, not found 18 why don't you read my language, why can't you <i>see</i> my language, why do my bones show 19 why i invent language from the ground up, from scratch, from primordial bits and bytes, from the chown chown russian daishin Nov EST parenthetical, from tablature 20 Nov 19 11:59:59 EST 1999 20a perfect resonance of odd numbers 20b you never talk about my work 20c you don't even read what i own 20d you don't let it affect you in any way 20e you stuff my words down my throat 20f you don't know how to read 21 from you to me 22 "my own take on things, then i'll get back to you" 23 do you own me? 24 diacritical membrane spread across the entities of the world: ownership 25 foreclosure across the skin-tableaus of the body, circumscriptions 27 your name inscribed on me, "the tip of the knife draws very little blood" 28 exchange of names 29 proper names 30 they're mine to do what i want with 31 is that a thing? 32 @create $thing called touch 33 "from the ground up, mine" 34 chown, change file owner and group 35 group 35, i own group 35 The Edited Number-Systems "And reading Knuth on number-base systems which include, for example a ternary system with +1, -1, and 0 as the symbols. Such systems can absorb the positive and negative numbers; there are others, such as ones based on 2i, that can absorb the complex number system as well (i.e. a single num- ber of the form ax^n + bx^(n-1) ... +dx^1 +e). This is an amazing economy of means. The book is my favorite in the Knuth programming series - the volume on Seminumerical Algorithms - since it goes into the construct of arithmetic processes and algorithms we all take for granted. In my own work, I've always been fascinated by the possibility of base-1 and base- infinity systems; in the former, of course, addition becomes concatena- tion, and in the latter, the addition of any two unique symbols results in a third, i.e. J + K = L. There's an easy translation from the decimal sys- tem; say 25 * 26 = 650 - one would just look up within the infinite multi- plication table, [25] and [26] and see [650] where the [x] represents the unique symbol. One goes from algorithms to infinite memorization or look- up. The phenomenology of this is really interesting, I think. For multip- lication with base-1, one returns again to concatenation, for example 1111 * 111 = 111 111 111 111 which is the same as 4 * 3 = 12. There's nothing to learn in terms of memorization or lookup tables here; there's nothing to look up or memorize. Think of this as an infinite abacus of sticks placed in a single row; one moves from base-infinity with its pure economy of place and infinite symbols, to base-one with its pure economy of symbol and infinite place. This material is fascinating; it says something about the stability of the world itself, the Aristotelian logic at the heart of the almost-disconnected plateau of the life-world. I wrote years ago ex- tensively on such phenomenologies; it's great to see the structures them- selves in Knuth." To place sticks in the row, letters in a row, one counts (literally) on the stability of place and demarcation - _these_ sticks are counted - _those_ remain unaccounted-for and uncounted. The sticks need not be in a row; there's no need for geometry, positioning, since what one is concerned with is the pure quantity of sticks, not a positional relationship. Interestingly, positionality also disappears with base-infinity, since every operation and quantity involves only _one_ pos- ition. In The Matrix, there is considerable discussion about "who is the One" - in base-one, everyone is, and in base-infinity, whatever is _there_ is the one. What is going on here? On one hand, with base-one, there is the fact and phenomenology of _substance_ and the quantifiability and stability of the world; on the other, with base-infinity, there is the problematic of the proper name in the Kripkean sense of rigid designator. In the former, names shift towards processes; in the latter, processes harden as names. One might also consider issues of perception: exactly what constitutes a stick or a symbol? Could, for example, two trees represent 2541 and 1734, a third representing 2541^1734 base-infinity? Is all of nature, in fact, the mathematics of base-infinity write large? At the other end, what might one say about typification, standardization: What constitutes a stick and what doesn't? Sticks are related to tallying, of course; they are indexi- cal in relation to the quantification of the real, a one-to-one relation- ship with other physical objects. On the other hand one might consider the base-infinity symbols both symbolic (standing-for quantity as proper names or summarizations) and "quasi-ikonic," the coagulation of quantity itself as unary. And there are issues of memory: _Where_ is the place of counting - which sticks have already been marked, which remain unmarked? This depends not only on the stability of place, but our knowledge of place as well. Since base-infinity relies on individuated symbols, place, even the place of _announcement,_ becomes less relevant; memory of place is replaced by symbol memory: 2541^1734 = [2541^1734] Between base-one and base-infinity, the structure and variety of the world appear - not the infinite and obdurate variety of base-infinity, nor the pure quantifications of base-one, but gatherings, foreclosings, metaphors and metonymies. It's at the limits that nature becomes simultaneously mute and revelatory; in-between it's all culture and our image writ large, rubbed against the structure of the world. the edited collaboration collaboration between two dying writers collaboration on the lam from the law collaboration marching from kosovo collaboration wounded in east timor collaboration beneath earthquake in free fire zone, collaboration in mountain fire zone, collaboration collaboration among prisoners collaboration between rival gangs in the mine-fields of pennsylvania, collaboration the last breath, you against the light, collaborating collaborating with friends collaborating with the enemy oh hiroshima mon amour to collaborate among the ruins of the atomic bomb insistent on the lyric after auschwitz, collaboration among my jews, collaboration among my neo-nazis, collaboration collaboration in the last words ever spoken collaboration among the last tears, the last sigh collaboration at a loss for words collaboration with present regimes and expulsions war-time and collaboration and of great beauty and moons wheeling, collaboration there are so many things i want to tell you there are so many things i must say to you before I die this morning, this evening, this night there are so many things, there is so little time to say them refugee, you will see me last, you will hear beyond my hearing refugee, you will walk, leaving this room of the dying refugee, you will carry with you, your collaborator refugee, i will not participate among the dying writers among the writers of death among the writers of death, i will not be carried The Edited Untitled Fragment Jennifer says: Julu is in 400,000 pieces. Piece 381,924 says: I am piece 381,924, you are addressing me. Jennifer says: Julu piece 381,924 is addressing me. Piece 381,924 says: Hello Julu, come in Julu. Jennifer says: You are 1/400,000 Julu; you have come in. Piece 381,924 says: Maybe what I have to say is one thing. Jennifer says: It is one thing, piece 381,924. Piece 381,924 says: This is one thing Julu. Jennifer says: This is Jennifer, Julu piece 381,924. Piece 381,924 says: Forgive me ... The 1999