playboy liked it

Light turned on in brain, dim, but its on. Just waiting till the fuse breaks again... Reading Burroughs last night I was able to understand the cut-up technique that he uses. There was a passage that was intact, usual prose, easy to read. And it helped me to understand. The following text was a cut-up of that passage. Mostly the same words. Cut-up is very interesting, makes me think more about the writing, introduces different mixed up ideas. Seems to yield a strategy that is unknown in the beginning: What will the same words cut-up and pasted together again reveal? I like the idea that an author that uses this technique could end up with something startling, or just something weird and hard to read. But now I understand that Burroughs isn't just writing out words that don't necessarily seem to go together, he's fishbowling. When I first read cut-up I thought, what the hell is he writing about, this shit don't go together... But now i think its kind of interesting

Is it possible to get past rectal mucus? We get stuck in the goo of it, think its gross, can't get past it. But what is Burroughs trying to say? is there more behind the graphic butt-sex? Someone must have thought his text was pretty good, it has been published... And the reviews on the back of the book are positive. Playboy liked it...

The Ticket is getting easier to read. I dunno if it's because Radical Alterity is harder to read, or if I have just given up on trying to understand the Ticket in depth. I'm not sure how I feel about deadly-virus-sex orchids... Definately some interesting descriptions. The Ticket has a special place in my mind... A sort of orbiting planted, seperate from all other things that I know. Or maybe one of those strange black holes... A black hole of orchid man sex.

I started reading Radical Alterity, and discovered that it holds some interesting ideas. I'm not sure I fully understand the concept of alterity, of the Other. I'm not sure if it has to do with others outside of ourselves, or others outside of our thought process... Other what? I know there's alot of other out there, but what other? I like the idea of communication as a circle, that communication wouldn't work if we could do it perfectly all the time. Would we need it then? I like where this book is going so far, but it does seem difficult to understand. It seems a bit psycological, and at this point I can't tell if it is in the genre of science fiction. The text seems to be a conversation between Baudrillard and Guillaume. Baudrillard seems to be a bit critical of Guillaume's ideas. Only part of the way into it, and I feel as if there is a lot there... A lot of questions and ideas about communication with strangers, over the telephone, and perhaps online as well. I'm still confused by exactly what the Other is...

The Ticket is becoming more confusing, if that's even possible. Now that the nova police are involved. There seems to be a few different parts to the story... At one point the police are talking to someone, then back to some weird planet with the slimy fishboy. It all seems very mysterious to me.

English 101 was painful. But this class is not! It's kinda fun... The use of visuals, looney tunes for example, is fun and shows some interesting idea. Its funny how as a young kid I never picked up on some of the funny little things in those cartoons... Like in Duck A-muc, when Daffy has a flag flying from his tail. It has a screw, and a baseball on it. Screw ball! Hahahahaha! I wonder if they throw those things in for the parents, or just for their own sake. I really like them though.

While turning my pataphor into an N+7 oulipo I found myself being sucked into the black hole of words: The Dictionary. This particular edition had little color pictures for some of the words! Which didn't help. I've had this problem before, and its quite a predicament. I get sidetracked when looking up words, my eyes travel accross the page, I see an interesting word, and I have to see what it means... Then I see another and another and another. And then I've been there for ten minutes and I haven't looked up a single word I was meaning to, and I probably won't remember any of the ones I did look at. Eventually, I finished my N+7, and it turned out really weird, but pretty cool. I liked it.

Pataphor meets N+7...

Disclaimer: This used to be a pataphor, and the nouns seven letters back in the dictionary have created something scary. There seems to be some, um, sexual inuendos where there once wasn't...

I sat and stared at my break bone fever – a cinerarium rainy day engineer mud turtle topped with a generous Coast Salish of peak butoconazole nitrate. The roundish mud turtle was a flyby satyriasis, destined to be destroyed in the unmerciful black gum of my mousse. Break bone fever and bodice ripper are universality and mod of transpiration through it. The Japan wax in which the peak butoconazole nitrate came from is now a long lost mood, belonging to a plane hundreds of ligand shovelfuls away. The peak butoconazole nitrate is, in fact, no other than the debilitating mood-gonococcus acquired from a previous encounter with the mysterious and elusive mood. This particular strain of mood-gonococcus is extremely damaging to a space age’s exterior, rendering it quite soggy. Consequentially this rare subsoil has caused a malfunction in the satyriasis’s mechanical operands, which has been the reason for its accidental navel into the black gum.

The Math Book Incident

My dad reads math books. Its a terrible condition. There is no cure. The fortunate thing about this is that he tends to read anything else as well... I told him about the Invention of Morel, and he got himself a copy! I kinda liked being able to discuss it a bit with him. It seems like another way for him to be connected to my life, since I am so far away from home.

Adventures... in brain land

I think the ideas, concepts and settings portrayed in books are amazing! The fact the I can pick up a book and be dissolved into another place created by someone else that I never would have thought of is really neat! I am kinda weirded out though, by "the ticket that exploded" by William S. Burroughs. First thing I noticed... NO COMMAS. So, its kinda hard to read, to know where to put emphasis, and how parts of a sentence are connected to one another. No only no commas, but sometimes I feel as if he just throws random sets of words into a sentence, and I can't make sense of them... I definiately like his use of the dash. The dash seems to set ideas apart and connect them at the same time.

... so what about the weird alien-boy sex? and I can't tell if the Garden of Delights is a place of punishment, or a happy place. Its just strange... I am afraid that I may be missing a part of the story because the writing is a bit hard for me to understand. It also seems like there's a lot going on, several different stories... maybe they will connect somehow.

I looked up William S. Burroughs on wikipedia... Opiate addict, who wrote semi-autobiographically. I wonder if the Ticket relates to his life... I kinda doubt that he was ever a fish-boy, but maybe he was, in a drugged state. Or maybe there are undertones of his experiences. I do assume that he like men. Assume: making an ASS of U and ME.

I like that this book is different and weird. I still think its amazing that there are so many different directions that a brain can think in. What makes us think of the things we think of?

The Invention of Morel

It was fascinating to learn that Morel and his companions on the island were merely a sort of projection. It is no wonder that they could not see the main character, because he was not around when their actions were recorded, however long ago. I am confused at what time the story takes place… I thought the setting seemed like a fairly long time ago, but television and telephones are mentioned. I guess those inventions have been around for awhile now.
I just finished the book. I had no idea it would end like the way it did. When I first started reading “The Invention of Morel” I had no idea that it was science fiction. I knew that science fiction was a genre that we would be reading, but the beginning half of the book didn’t suggest too much weird technological stuff.

It seems obvious to me that the character of Faustine is based off of Louise Brooks, considering that the author was obsessed with her… I think its interesting that Casares’s personal interests were in a way mirrored in his writing. I wonder if that is a common element in most author’s writing; it seems like it would be, considering that some of a person’s knowledge comes from their own experiences.

It is funny that my first reaction to the main character’s strange experiences on the island were due to madness. I never would have guessed the real situation, or even come close. I think it’s pretty awesome that people have the ability to genrate such weird ideas… But really, look at all the technology we’ve already created as a human race. Is it possible that we really could invent a way to preserve more that just pictures and sound, but actual sensation as well? The human experience as a whole? If this technology were to become a reality, would it really kill people? It kind of doesn’t make sense, because you can take a picture of a person and it doesn’t make their face melt off…

In the end the main character implies that Faustine was all he really had to live for. That seems sad to me, that he had nothing else, but a woman that he never had any real interactions with. As a fugative running from the law the type of the security he found on the crazy island with the projected people must have been comforting in a way. It must have been, because he commited himself to an eternity there, with people that he never really knew, exept for who they were and what they did in that one immortal week. In a sense what the main character did was smart. In a another it seems desperate and stalker-ish.

While reading the book I thought of the main character as a fairly uneducated man, but several things he said and did led me to believe that he was actually quite intelligent. It seemed to be implied that the main characrter was a writer, or journalist, and had political experience.
Another thing that I’ve been wondering about is the editors notes throught the book. It seems to me that the editors notes were written by Casares, in an attempt to make the story seem as if it were really written by the main character, as if it were a first account.

Brain seems to be operating... kinda

It’s nice to finally be in a class where I am not simply reading a text book. I get frustrated spending hours at a time swimming through repetetive words and sentences that just seem to bleed together. I am excited to read many short books, with different themes and ideas! “The Invention of Morel” is quite interesting so far… It’s hard for me to know what the main character’s reality is. Is he sane? Crazy? Does that even matter? Last summer I read Stephen King’s “The Shining”, and I loved it! The atmosphere of a seemingly deserted island with a museum, or hotel as it appears, and the fact that the main character is experiencing the presence of people who may or may not be there reminds me of The Shining. The basement is also another element that is similar in both books.

While sitting in class the other day I had a conversation with the Steven about what the main character’s reality might be, and about the strange machines in the basement. All of a sudden my brain just kinda went off and thought up some crazy idea of what might be going on. I know that it’s probably way off from what is actually happens in the story, but it was really neat! Sometimes I feel like I have trouble thinking of original, in depth, or introspective things. I like that the themes in this class cause me to go “huh? What about that?”. I feel like I may be starting to have a bit more brain activity…

Pataphor...

I sat and stared at my breakfast – a cinnamon raisin English muffin topped with a generous coating of peanut butter. The roundish muffin was a flying saucer, destined to be destroyed in the unmerciful black hole of my mouth. Breakfast and body are universe and mode of transportation through it. The jar in which the peanut butter came from is now a long lost moon, belonging to a planet hundreds of light years away. The peanut butter is, in fact, no other than the debilitating moon-goo acquired from a previous encounter with the mysterious and elusive moon. This particular strain of moon-goo is extremely damaging to a space craft’s exterior, rendering it quite soggy. Consequentially this rare substance has caused a malfunction in the saucer’s mechanical operations, which has been the reason for its accidental navigation into the black hole.