Dr.
Sarturnian’s Writing Machine, image by Pedro R. Rivadeneira
Ending section of
“Dr. Sarturnian’s Monologue”
fourth and last section
of “Song of Anonymous”
a novel in progress by Pedro R. Rivadeneira
this I see hear
when I’m writing the words
themselves broken their sounds their images fragments of materials adrift like flotsam debris from a wreckage in the onrushing
current of circumstances that is our existence
the writing itself the drifting
words a kind of mapping of catastrophe bumping into each other searching each other’s jagged edges like
chunks of ice floating refuse drifting
down river towards the falls like flotsam jagged
white grayish shapes puzzle-like
slowly swirling round and round
caught in a whirlpool like
jetsam near the river’s edge where the bend begins blindly searching each others’ edges shapes
erratically bumping into each other
never quite fitting in
sign flotsam
discombobulation:
some jetsam to forget
me knots as ever present in this content
*
foiled me messy
from ended:
a ripple of pink
tinged with
white
through
dark
forest
green rustling in
the
night
*
flot·sam
Pronunciation Key (fltsm) n.
1. a. Wreckage or cargo that remains afloat after a
ship has sunk.
b. Floating refuse or debris.
2. Discarded odds and ends.
3. Vagrant, usually destitute people.
*
jet·sam
Pronunciation Key (jtsm) n.
1. Cargo or equipment thrown overboard to lighten a ship in distress.
2. Discarded cargo or equipment found washed ashore. See Usage Note at flotsam.
3. Discarded odds and ends
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- outside the window I see dark,
heavy clouds lying low in the sky, impenetrable, the trees tremble almost
imperceptibly as a light breeze wanders through them carrying a fine drizzle in
the late afternoon light, the garden is suddenly imbued with an unforeseen
clarity, I can see the cracks, fissures and grooves in the trees’ moist black
bark, the veins in the parched, translucent bright yellow of the few leaves
that still linger on the branches, the varied lines and shapes crisscrossing
each other in the etiolated, unkept grasses and weeds, a plastic bag, an empty
bottle, garbage randomly scattered about the grounds, each thing seeming to
have a light of its own, giving the entire area a serene sense of place in the
present moment -
not
knowing why I raise myself up – the
professor suddenly says in a quiet, gruff voice - my body my mind
my thoughts and feelings I who
am a car . . . a car . . . a carcajando me like carne nigra gran ganando
gangrenous carcass amid a mist mu . . . mue . . . muerto mujer rota morta est amidst a buca rest
with fallen teeth out off rotten gums and tongue’s unrest deceased by disease by disease deceased so I
raise myself up off the bed and sitting on the edge gaze out the window at the
trees outside at the branches
intertwined crisscrossing each
other forming complex shapes and
textures this is what I see see as an example of what to do where to go not only what to write but how to write their lonely lovely
brightly colored autumnal leaves seeming to have a light of their own they have a light of their own the
luminous bushes and the colors of the fallen leaves replicating
themselves spinning in my room like the leaves outside turning in the
wind in my head this of course is an allusion but we are
tired I can no longer go on like
this all thoughts all words are excremental – he whispers
gently with eyes closed sniffing the air - what we tried to get at with
words for years now centuries
is it meaning in the commotion of its gleaming or yet another voice in a
turbulent night of dreaming? motions
of something reading itself reading
itself was something in motion with a voice for propulsion rather agitated antiquated
yet still effective looking for
a purpose ‘neath the sun’s glaring
stare bare of all intent one
notion will suffice to organize a life and project it into unusual but viable
forms so that they become a luminous backdrop to ever-repeated gestures do you know any Ashbery? – he asks looking
up at me - Ashbery and Stevens are my favorite poets but then there’s Artaud who destroys all that . . . but . . . as I
may have already said writing can be a
demonic endeavor . . . writing is primarily a kind of activity I mean to say a kind of physical activity which is to say a kind of bodily function as is thinking an
excretion if you will all writing is
excremental the brain’s electricity bleeding into the
surrounding atmosphere only through
this destructiveness can one speak freely
you see it is only through this
disintegration this ongoing
destruction that one can think and
speak freely alienation becomes the
singularity that allows for total freedom
but no! – he suddenly blurts out – I must
tell you! show you something! the machine I’ve been working on for
years! no one has seen it what it can do! with the exception of my sister of
course but you’d be the first! you must see it! what it can do my writing machine! perhaps you can try it yourself! – he
exclaims again this time giggling nervously – it has something in common with
Raymond Roussel’s writing machine but
of course with today’s technology . . . – he trails off then continues
energetically - actually it differs
greatly in that with my machine I can work directly with the brain’s waves the
machine opened up territories in me I didn’t know existed the dreams I have are extraordinary unprecedented I see landscapes that can only belong to
other worlds I mean to say those territories are in me but the me
no longer is that is to say I become an otherness it seems . . . come I
will show you! – he suddenly gestures at me with his cigarette hand while at
the same time jumping out of his chair with the spontaneous agility of a child
and walks toward the studio door the threshold of which he crosses instantly
with an effortless skip, he then turns his head toward me and gesturing again,
disappears into the darkness of the hallway laughing. I remain still for a few
seconds until I hear him shout - come on! - Slugishly, I begin to move toward
the door which seems far away, impossible to reach, as if I were stuck in a
kind of dreamlike Zeno’s paradox; the distance between myself and the door,
though short
getting shorter,
never seeming to end, I hear his voice as if from a long distance away even
never seeming to end. Finally, as I’m approaching the professor’s studio door,
a sinewy hand suddenly pops out of the darkness and gripping my forearm with
surprising force drags me into the hallway. With lead feet and wobbly legs, I
stumble along behind the professor who, cackling maniacally, pulls me along by
the sleeve. I see a light pouring from an open door at the end of the hall -
voilå! - the old man exclaims gesturing with widespread arms – this is our
laboratory! our playground! – he squeals - this is where my sister and I
conduct our experiments with language
and perception with brain waves and
sound manipulating our brain waves
with negative feedback – he says smiling at me with glee as he stands sideways
in the doorway with one hand on his hip, the other, with cigarette between
index and middle finger, palm facing upwards raised above his shoulder
gesturing toward the interior of the room like a proud house wife. I enter into
a windowless, rectangular room with a high ceiling filled with all kinds of
electronic equipment, old and new. The room reminds me of an old analogue
electronic music studio. The dust-covered walls are painted in a faded
institutional gray-green color. Against the opposite wall, along the length of
the room, are two long worktables, and on the wall above them are shelves
stacked with books and papers. On the tables stand four large LCD computer
monitors. Below the tables, resting on wooden pallets that sit on the dusty
wooden floor, among stacks of books and papers, cables and power strips, sit
four state of the art computer towers linked to each other, seemingly working
in tandem. Against the rear wall stands a table with a large multichannel sound
mixer and a tall equipment rack that includes a patch bay full of connecting
cables. There are also several synthesizers; an old Arp 2600 and an even older
Moog synthesizer complete with all its modules, patch cables arching and
dangling from their dark surfaces. I also see old multichannel tape recorders,
oscilloscopes and filters, and an old ring modulator and harmonizer stacked
upon each other in the rear corners of the room along with the latest model
digital signal processor and other equipment which reminds me somewhat of
medical equipment one sees in hospitals. Among them, I recognize an
electro-encephalogram machine that seems to be connected to the synthesizers
via some kind of interface unit. In the middle of the room I see what appears
to be a reclining dentist chair at the head of which rests a kind of helmet
with a mass of thin, multicolored wires emanating from its surface. The wires
cascade behind the chair toward the floor in a swooping curve and then, several
meters later, ascend coming together into a large horizontal connector plugged
into a console in the equipment rack in the back of the room. The rest of the
room’s walls are covered with paintings of unfamiliar landscapes and objects,
presumably the work of the professor’s sister. Charts of various sorts, as well
as scraps of paper with notes and odd symbols scribbled on them in ink or
pencil are tacked or stuck with scotch tape onto some of the paintings and
whatever spaces are left available on the walls. The professor suddenly halts
and speaks up with a wheezing voice - as stated in his “Journey to the
Taraumara” according to Artaud and
also certain phenomenologists all of reality is a kind of language all of reality speaks all of reality is an intricate web of
signs signs and languages that speak
about us and our predicament signs
which forever point to each other in an infinite web of relationships all of reality a veritable morass of languages criss
crossing interrupting and dialoguing
with each other in an interminable tangle
an entanglemeant in fact – he
states emphatically – a meaningful tangle of events a polysemous tangle of meanings all of life the entire universe in fact is a koan as Dogen Kigen the thirteenth century Japanese Buddhist
monk would have it a web of languages
most of which remain and will
remain unintelligible to us – he says
wheezing softly – we are lost in a maze
an interminable eternal maze
from which there is no escape except for those few whose actions are lacking in
self interest – he says grimacing –
. . . my sister’s
digital art work and her scanned paintings . . . I mean thanks to an algorhythm I wrote which
permits us to take the digital information from her works her scanned paintings and her digital art
works by means of a kind of
mapping that is to say we take the values from the digital and
scanned works and map them unto the brain’s waveforms I mean to say the computer translates the information from
the visual imagery into wave forms that by means of reverse feed-back are fed
directly into my brain but first of
course – he grumbles - my mind must be made blank the original brain waves must be as it were
erased in order to do this one must use phase cancellation this
is produced by the sum of two waves of the same frequency and amplitude that
are out of phase with each other the
end result is a wave that has less overall amplitude than both original
waves
in other words modeled after an electroencephalogram of my
brain the computer generates a new set
of brain waves just like mine in frequency and amplitude the only difference is that they differ in
phase it then feeds them back into my
brain thus adding them on to the ones my brain is already producing so creating
the desired effect of phase cancellation – he grins briefly - in this
manner the brain is made considerably
more quiet more receptive than it
usually is with its usual internal noises
monologues and other mechanisms by which the mind defends itself against
reality the eternal silence once this is achieved little by little the computer begins to feed the brain the
new values the new information taken
from my sister’s digital and scanned works
and this information begins to alter the comportment of the brain’s
waves by changing the values of their parameters to match those of the art
works that is to say their frequency and amplitude values as
well as their density the brain begins
to function in frequency and amplitude ranges unknown this of course will alter the brain’s
chemistry and most certainly at the molecular level its structure producing highly unusual states of
perception of consciousness quite literally one comes into contact with landscapes with views
sounds textures and colors one
has never encountered before
of course this is quite a dangerous endeavor all manner of things can go wrong one could conceivably end up brain dead or the brain begin to produce a jumble of
waveforms the brain would become
infinitely more noisy than what it already is
one wouldn’t be able to function
one would go mad to be sure or
collapse in the throes of endless seizures
the brain being caught up in a chaotic
cascading feed-back loop – he says whispering cautiously - but perhaps
the most dangerous thing would be to be hacked while in the midst of the
computer induced hypnogogic trance necessary to undergo the feed-back
process hacked by some exterior some unknown source someone hacking into our computers could
cause all manner of havoc this person this entity
– he says suddenly coughing agitated – could change the information going from
the computer into the brain this person this being I mean to say the hacker
could alter the values the information taken from my sister’s
works transferred into the computers and from the computers into the brain this person or whatever could very well reconfigure one’s brain as
he or she or maybe it
sees fit this person this creature
could in fact edit the contents of
one’s brain of one’s mind and therefore
one’s thoughts one’s perceptions
would be completely transfigured such
a person such a being such a creature would have complete control over one’s
mind over one’s body over one’s body and mind - he says
fidgeting and looking around nervously - complete access to one’s thoughts and
feelings one’s dreams such an entity would have access to
the deepest recesses of one’s mind knowing things about myself that not even I
know it would thus be able to
manipulate me with impunity without my
knowing anything about it while you
normally think of yourself as being in charge of your thoughts and actions your dreams and feelings your desires your physical motions in reality there is someone or some thing who is controlling
them making all those decisions for
you – he says – no longer belonging to yourself you’d find if you’re aware that you are completely lost in a veritable forest of dreams a labyrinth of mirages from which you can’t
awake set adrift in an ever changing
reality controlled and defined in fact
created by that unknown other to which you now
belong – he whispers slowly and softly - of course one night
it did indeed happen we were
hacked by an unknown source an
unknown force highjacked our system and began changing things around . . . from
the someone hacked into the something system jacked into it into me and started
changing things around and round
slowly swirling perpetual system dismantling perceptions in re-creation
breaking down matter down to its smallest elements – he says with agitagion -
one night my sister and I were here in
the computer lab working we had been
working for hours we were working on
transferring data of the various parameters of her visual works the colors
the textures the shapes the lines and intersections the various patterns from some of her paintings from some of what she calls her oneiric landscapes transferring that data into our computers
and applying it to the parameters of sound
that is to say mapping all that
visual data to frequency[1] amplitude[2] rhythm
timbre and spectral information[3] in other words taking all that data and turning it into
potential musical information the
values from the data we then plugged
into the patches[4]
I wrote in SuperCollider 3[5] the various instruments[6] I had created using
the SuperCollider 3 program which would take all that information and
manipulate and transform it into different kinds of waveforms sound structures of varying textural
densities timbres frequencies and amplitudes using different types of envelope
generators[7] to produce different
kinds of attacks and durations using
random number generators that is to
say noise generators to control the values of the various
parameters in each instrument so as to
add unpredictability needless to
say the complexity and variety
produced was enormous one of my
favorite patches is the FM synthesis[8] patch with multiple
carriers and modulators which produces an incredible variety of timbres attacks and textures it’s various parameters it’s envelope generators also controlled by random number
generators so as to produce as unpredictable a number and types of attacks and
durations for each event as is possible
I applied various sound prosessing techniques with the instruments I
wrote in SC3 such as various types of
filtering FFTs[9][i] for spectral
processesing various types of
granulation[10] aliasing[11] the afore mentioned FM synthesis all of whose parameters were controlled by
random number generators the brain
being the greatest random number generator of all! – he suddenly squeals with
excitement - all of these instruments and processesors I put in a kind of list
we call an Array and this Array I nest
inside a Routine which is a virtual object
that generates events at given times
these times too were controlled randomly – he says wheezing - all of
this produced an effect of great variety and unpredictabiltity textures would change in surprising
ways all kinds of unheard of tone colors durations and articulations creating a sound scape that unfolded and
developed in a virtually infinite number of ways a sound scape into which we would go
exploring in a state of complete wonderment – he says with excitement, smiling
with pleasure revealing his stained, rotting teeth – yet one night one night something happened something terrible something truly horrendous – he says barely
whispering in a trembling voice – a door was opened somehow
somewhere we don’t know how a door was thrown open perhaps in my mind my mind as conduit a doorway into a world of an infinite
variety of languages words and
voices bumping into each other in a
haphazard manner snaking around each
other in a frenzy – he says barely audible – as I was sitting in our modified
dentist’s chair wearing the headset
you see there with all the electrodes and wires coming out of it deeply plunged into a completely relaxed
and open hypnagogic state our
computers all of a sudden began to act erratically my sister who was sitting at the
monitors lost control of the machines
as they began to scroll data up and down the screens with maniacal speed I began to hear at first a faint humming
sound like the metallic humming of
insects insect mandibules clicking
and clacking obsessively insect wings
in the distance humming maniacally
then growing louder and louder and among the humming sounds I also began to hear what seemed like
voices metallic insect-like voices laced with occasional bands of staticky
noise nervously chattering mandibules
and sharp fidgety claws clickety
clacketing and in the midst of the
images I was receiving from the computers of my sister’s intra-psychic
landscapes there began to appear pitch
black angular shapes heads with angular pointy ears on
wide angular shoulders from which
issued black pointy bat-like wings with sharp claws at their ends but somehow these were flat two dimensional shapes gliding without
effort among the images of the varied tissue-like geological structures textures and colors of my sister’s
landscapes as I looked more intently
into my self into my mind I saw that the flat bat-like shapes where issueing from one
central place one central point an annulus
perhaps the very center of my mind
gliding rapidly they began to form circles of flat sharp
angular bat-like shapes turning clockwise and counterclockwise one circle within another suddenly reminding me of M.C. Escher’s
woodcut “Circle Limit IV” with it’s concentric circles of black bats their humming mumbling chatter the electrical humming of their metallic
mandibules chattering ringing in my
ears and in my insides driving me
mad tearing at the tissues of my
mind tickling me in different areas of
my body from the inside out from inside my body I began to wonder if he too Escher
had encountered these creatures
these dark angels that now swarmed in my insides the static of their electric thoughts
buzzing in my ears mumbling
mindlessly they began to nip and
cut nibble bite and tear at my insides with their razor sharp angular shoulders
and pointy ears they slashed and stabbed at my flesh from within first at my liver and spleen then
with their razor sharp claws they tore at my kidneys my bladder and intestines scooping out my insides slashing at the connective tissues that keep
the organs in place puncturing my
lungs till they collapsed stabbing at
my heart with their scorpion-like tails
in the far distance I could hear a terrifying scream as if the sky was
being ripped asunder as the scream
got deafeningly closer I opened my eyes only to realize the scream was mine I saw my sister mouth agape staring at the wall in front of her
paralyzed with fear I turned my eyes
in the direction she was looking and saw a swarm of the shadow-like two-dimensional creatures swirling round the
room they glided effortlessly along the
walls ceiling and floor their point of origin seeming to be the
vertices of the room’s corners – he says with agitation - instinctively I
pulled off the electrode headset and jumping out of the chair ran as fast as I could to the equipment rack
in the back of the room and immediately killed the master power switch to which
all of the lab’s electronic equipment is connected the mayhem disappeared almost instantly –
he says with a grimace – they exist in the electrical system you see in the flow of electrons it may very well be that another
dimension another universe exists in
the electrical system the flow of
electric current the stream of
particles of electrons opens up doorways into other worlds where these
beings exist perhaps electricity
itself is alive a kind of living
process with a mind a consciousness of its own perhaps through the quantum processes that
go on in our brains something like
quantum entanglement ocurrs our
brains our minds share the same
particles with other beings in other dimensions enabling our minds to connect with
theirs I must admit a frightening thought – he says whispering
softly – it may very well be that these beings these entities have been my editors all
along cutting and pasting rearranging my writings turning them into something I can’t
recognize as my own . . .
it was the editors I’m sure – he says gasping for air - and if it wasn’t
them then it was . . . just as they
rearranged my insides my organs they started to change things around change my brain waves put thoughts language
voices in my head I didn’t have there before I didn’t want there they put writing in my head on my pages I didn’t want never meant to be . . .
it was the editors – he mutters cautiously - I’m sure
who nearly killed me they might
as well have just as they scooped all
my organs out they took my works away
from me they took my words away from me my writings my excretions they obviously wanted me dead dead in life a kind of living death is what they had in
store for me keeping me half
alive this is the torment they’ve had
in store for me all along they
scrambled my brains my thoughts so that I could not have a single clear thought or insight anymore I could never love anything I wrote after
they finished with me my body my mind
after they finished with it my
writings completely destroyed – he says
with desperation - they destroyed the original intention the original vision under the pretext of producing something
they said the public wants to read as
if anyone knows what the public wants
or even if the public reads at all
or if the public even exists for that matter! they destroyed the structure of my
works in most cases it is
the structure that says everything
just as much if not more than
the words themselves I mean to say the internal relationships between the
sections and subsections of the work as
well as the relationship between each of the works themselves they completely erased the experimental exploratory nature of my works turning them into the opposite turning them into the conformist complacent kind of literature one finds
everywhere I could never love any of
my books after that I could never
consider them mine anymore they merely
had my name on them but it wasn’t me
who wrote those books not after they
finished with them they changed
everything in them in my books they altered everything after they completely rearranged them beyond
recognition I could never see them read them again consider them as mine consider them mine they claimed the main idea was still
there in the books that it was the best part of the books this they said patronizing me as if I couldn’t see what they had
done but of course the main idea was
the experimental nature of the works which they discarded completely they claimed the main idea as theirs which they completely changed into the usual
drab linear narrative thus erasing
it the main idea so-called of
course there was more than one main idea as they called it they were complex you couldn’t reduce them down to just one
idea it was censorship plain and
simple it was politically ideologically motivated without a doubt the philistines wanted narrative they wanted narrative stories they said the public wanted something they
were familiar with something they
knew they said the public liked
that that they like what they know and
that they didn’t want any changes made
they said the public knows what it likes and it likes what it knows it
likes what it knows and it knows what it likes tight little circle this pretty as the truth tied at both ends – the
old man says bitingly - they said they didn’t want this little circle this vicious little circle of theirs this nasty little limit cycle of theirs
broken this was not the time to inject
new information into it they said the
public doesn’t want its little habits changed
its reading and thinking habits
the public’s perceptual habits should not be changed should not be challenged in any way – the
old man says annoyed - this is what they said
that the time was not ripe for change
but of course it never is! – he gestures angrily - of course by doing this by re-interpreting my writings in their own
image and releasing them to the public
as mine the so-called public of which
I know nothing and for which I have nothing but contempt they
the editors were preparing the
way for my suicide I am discarded I am discharged like so much refuse a vagrant
so much jetsam
the I is discarded this whole story was is
about the destruction of the self this
gradual process of degradation a long
process of erosion that takes years and which got me to where I am now living in the rubble of what was once myself
– he mutters slowly with trembling voice holding on to what’s left of his
cigarette with a shaky hand, his knees too tremble, his entire body shudders with
dread like an animal in a slaughterhouse sensing the nearness of its time –
they took me away from myself you see – he whimpers - they made sure my voice
had been made ineffective I had never
even met them this Mr. Q and this Ms.
Z my editors I
never met them in the flesh face to
face I don’t even know if they
exist I called the publishers enquiring after them but they were always out they worked from their homes I was told and were not to be bothered as they were now
involved in an enormous translation project and had no time for me and my petty
problems so I was told of course by changing my writings my language they were changing my thinking by changing the structure of my
writings they were changing my insides by re-arranging the structure of my
writings they were re-arranging my
insides by changing my language they
were also changing my perceptions
pushing me ever closer to madness
it was becoming necessary that I change things back to the way they were
originally I needed to protect myself –
he says with increasing desperation – I found it necessary to re-write
everything I had written until then
until now everything that had
been published in my name in an
attempt to repossess my work my
legacy rescue it from these horrendous
misrepresentations of course in order to do that I had to misrepresent
the published works again misquote
and plagiarize the books and writings that had been published in my name this was a kind of ritual for purifying
myself a self purifying ritual I mean to say
certain rites are necessary to purify and protect the space around
oneself in which one works you see this
is an absolute necessity of course it
was this obsession with the main themes in my works that of the destruction of the
individual of the self and that of how language can re-shape redefine reality and the self how it can influence and change our
perception of reality and therefore
how it language
can re-define and
change us as individuals the map may
not be the territory but it is most
definitely part of it and what’s more the map itself is a kind of territory –
he emphasizes vehemently wheezing – it was these two recurrent themes that
brought me to the place where I find myself today my self demolished a veritable collection of rubble unable to find the energy the peace of mind with which to collect
myself pick up the pieces literally – he says sighing again – it was
these two recurrent themes in my work
one: the destruction of the individual and two: language as a
determining factor in how we think and perceive reality its hallucinogenic properties and its role as a determining factor in the
construction of identity and therefore the individual these two themes that ironically
have led to my destruction – he slumps back down into his chair
exhausted breathing again with difficulty -
if only I could tell someone about
this if only I could tell people about
this but nowadays no one talks to anybody no one listens to anybody there are all these barriers everywhere you go everywhere you look there are barriers walls and moats trenches and barbed wire fences endless divisors and mazes erected first in our minds then all around us in the so-called world
outside as excretions of our insides of
course I talk to all kinds of
people people of all ages you see I mean to say if I could talk if I could go outside leave this house if I could walk I would speak to anybody a child
an old person a teenager a young adult a student
I could speak to anyone if I
could speak if I could walk their age
their station would be
irrelevant we’ve all been there at some
point in our lives as youngsters or will soon be there when we get older all these barriers we have erected and
maintain in ourselves and around each other
why do we go on like this? – he enquires barely audible as he stares
vacantly at the wall in front of him – I look to the sky the night sky and no longer see the
stars it has been years since I’ve seen
stars in this city of gray gray skies
gray walls and gray foggy
nights there are no stars to be
seen anywhere the world is a progressive dimming of
light it is only the incomprehensible
that has any conviction . . .
liking disliking what does any of that mean? – he
says pensively drifting off into silence -
hob knobbing with hobgoblins! – he suddenly cries out - I care not for
extracting more than utter gloom from
this our human landscape of inconceivable devastation! to ward off the contingent toward warding off the contained
offerings con . . . con . . .
contaminated! as I’ve already said this is what we struggle with throughout
our lives – he mutters softly almost sobbing - those scenes lifted from real
life so-called the storm reasserts itself unable to let go yet
at the same time unable to hold
on all of the arts all such endeavors are dead pointless – he says softly with mild
derision – have been for quite some time now
as well they should be for they
are expressions of a time long gone
it is the silence we must now face together only one moment of silence and darkness
brings us all together unites us all
in a single terrifying realization
that of our bare naked existence – he mutters distractedly staring at
the floor as the light suddenly shifts in the room - all of the twentieth
century with its various schools its
various movements its avant
gardes with its aspirations to
revolution and changing the world all
of the twentieth century with its sacrificial
heroic movements was nothing
more than an extension of Romanticism and the acknowledgement of the latter’s
failure to achieve its goals we flail
haplessly in our self made prisons
helplessly unable to face the
hopelessness of hoping of course to exist is to exert conditioning power on
the world it’s a two way street why doesn’t anybody see this? – he asks
almost squealing -
killing life killing the world with our thoughts they force me to repeat myself you
see they take me away from myself from my body they make me choke on mine own words subject to a naïve a simplistic conception of matter we turn life into so much inert material over analyzing everything to death into death with our deadly beliefs we turn the entire world into one large
necrotic mass one gigantic heap of
corpses the new born come into this
world among so much death the muck of
putrefaction why! ones semen is
black necrotic! in
the end only kindness mutters to
itself – he chuckles softly – what more is left us the
tedious mendacious lot but to destroy ourselves and each other and
everything else we hate everything anything
anyone that makes us feel lesser
inferior inadequate and life
the universe makes us feel
very small insignificant we can’t stand it we can’t take it we are incapable of accepting it you
see and we can’t change it control it
nor can we destroy it but out
of spite then we will destroy one of
its creations ourselves! ourselves and this world our planet and
everything in it poisoning everything
to death! the life of the
intellectual is a dry meaningless
lonely life after all this
time aah aaah I’ve arrived at this
realization only to see that all my accomplishments are vain and empty and that
reality is so much more than I in my
arrogant myopic view had envisioned reality is so much more complex and magical
than we can grasp with our words our
thoughts the most astute verbal
descriptions and constructions the
most clever forms of thinking don’t come close to grasping what’s happening all
around us and in ourselves and what we do to the world subject as we are have been for centuries to a naïve simplistic conception of matter of materialism turning life into so much inert matter over analyzing everything to death into death
I should say it is into death that we analyze
everything killing life killing the world with our thoughts of course they are all fighting each other
all the time killing each other in the
most insidious ways in an attempt to
consolidate their turf what they see
as their turf their territory in an attempt to establish superiority intellectuals and artists writers
poets and composers everywhere fighting each other fighting each other over bits of scrap
thrown at them by the philistines the
business class they fight each other
over beauty what they think is
beautiful beauty and truth wanting to be the first the only ones who express the truth wanting to be right always right wanting to be the only direct conduit the only messengers of the Gods of the truth and therefore establish their
superiority over everyone else all
along blind to the fact that all the fighting and its ensuing nastiness is the
only truth and it isn’t a beautiful one
quite the contrary it’s very
ugly it has the ugliness of ego of selfishness behind it motivating it it is the same nastiness behind all the
wars all the ugliness and suffering we humans are capable of and have seen
throughout the hundreds the thousands
of years of our sordid history wanting
to feel superior all this born out of
a sense of disdain for the human the
mortal the body and its
imperfections our fear of what’s
inevitable our fear of death and
decay our fear of life - he suddenly looks at me grinning and
swivels around playfully in his chair tapping his feet on the dusty floor
displacing dust balls and cigarette butts -
those there are who
think me negative – he says derisively – negative positive
what’s it all mean? more dualism more fragmentation which is at the root of all our problems –
he snickers - just think of this all
those wonderful people – he says
again mockingly – all those artists and
scientist those teachers and composers
with all their wonderful works their
contributions to history to
culture to knowledge to so-called humanity – he emphasizes snidely – not to mention all those
wonderful positive human beings who shall remain forever anonymous those loving mothers and fathers who had
nothing but kindness to give their children
all those teachers who had nothing but support to offer their
students all those wonderful anonymous
people with all their positive thinking their optimism and perseverance their love for humanity none of that managed to prevent to stop the First World War the massacre of one million Armenians at the
hands of the Turks the horrendous
exploitation of the Congolese by the Belgian
the extermination of the indigenous peoples of the Americas the
death camps and all the other horrors of the Second World War the Vietnam War the rise of all manner of brutal
totalitarianisms global Capitalism
being the latest incarnation the
ongoing conquest and destruction of the natural world this sort of thing this rage against life against ourselves and each other this has been going on for hundreds thousands of years this destructive movement evolving throughout time becoming more and more devastating like a
growing wave a sunami an avalanche
all that positive thinking all
that love and optimism all that hope has proven useless in face of the destructive force that is humanity for we are a destructive force obviously
just being positive and
optimistic is not enough especially
when such optimism entails denial
closing off the so-called negative within ourselves not facing and dealing with it head on
obviously avoiding these things
doesn’t make them go away all the
deathly weariness of human existence as
we have seen throughout the centuries
quite the contrary it comes back
with a vengeance
our country all of humanity in fact is shock
shock and awe as the
military strategic term goes a totality involving a ruthless and brain
destroying recipe that corrodes one’s resolve to the core
in such a weakened state
everyone including one’s
closest family and friends turns on
you they do everything they can to
make you falter to undermine you drive you over the edge to suicide they have no interest in seeing who and
what you really are only in so far as
they can use you exploit you in some
manner this is what they do to
you they judge you label you brand you with an image they have concocted
in their twisted minds and then treat you accordingly for the rest of your
life in effect freezing you into a
position into a collection of habits
and behaviours from which you can’t break free and which serve as justification
for the punishment the violence they enjoy inflicting on you –
he says in a loud hoarse whisper - this destructiveness we see everywhere in
our society in our world this unabashed hostility is especially directed at thinkers intellectuals and artists people who think and question people who create new ways of seeing listening
thinking and feeling it is
directed also at sensitives seers people of deep spirituality . . . this has
been going on for centuries thousands
of years in fact but in recent
history it has taken an especially
nasty turn with the rise of the industrial age and capitalism this in combination with anglo-saxon
Protestantism and positivism – he says smirking again – anglo-saxon capitalist
pragmatism in combination with positivism has completely enslaved our
world has turned our world ourselves included – he says grimacing
again – into so much raw material to be dissected and exploited with impunity .
. . an environment a society that is
itself obsessive fixated on
denial it society
obsesively looks away from the suffering it has caused and is actively
involved in causing even now as we
speak – he frowns and coughs, then continues – as I’ve already said by talking incessantly and walking around in
circles I keep them at bay it is a
kind of ritual dance an ancient ritual
dance you see to scare away evil spirits I learned it from the Abipon an indigenous people of South America you know
they lived in the lower Bermejo River area in the Gran Chaco of
Argentina it is more effective if
more people are involved forming a
large circle walking around in
circles chanting and talking sometimes shouting so as to generate a
field of energy the spirits can’t penetrate . . . we are surrounded by them
here our cities are crawling with
them you know we attract them with our negative thoughts
and violent ways they love our
gossip our mendacity as do we
you might say they feed on it . . . but if . . . as it is claimed . . .
the Buddhists say in the Lankavatara Suttra
that we create reality with our minds
that we create objective reality with our minds and presumably that means with our brains . . . – he mutters desperately,
aimlessly shuffling about mechanically on the floor – but no . . . no . . . –
he stands still for a moment, cigarette in hand, staring vacantly at the wall
in front of him, drool dangling from his lower lip and then he suddenly
exclaims - what am I saying! here I go
again talking my head off I meant to
show you! I wanted to show you how
this contraption of ours works! the
very interesting results we get with it – he walks toward the equipment rack
and flicks on the main power switch, all of the equipment lights up, he then
sits at the computers and turns them on, the screens light up and he boots into
the system and opens several applications and programs, SuperCollider 3.8 among
them, the lights on the interface units blinking - I’m sure that as an artist
yourself as a composer you will find these results to be very
interesting – he says enthusiastically. In one of the screens I see images
consisting of complex textures and shapes of varying colors and hues, they look
like electron microscope images of different kinds of tissues. Some of the
images also look like landscapes consisting of various geological terrains. The
colors, shapes and textures seem to shift slowly as if they were alive,
breathing. I assume these are examples of his sister’s visual art. On the other
screen I see a window with code and another window for a DAW; the digital to
analog interface unit that controls up to thirty two channels through which
signals are routed. He gets up and asks me to sit at one of the screens and
instructs me to click on three virtual buttons with the mouse cursor when he
tells me to. He quickly walks over to the modified dentist’s chair and nimbly
jumps into it, then, reaching above and behind him with his hands, he takes
hold of the headset with the electrodes and fits it onto his head with ease. He
then lays back into the chair and closes his eyes. Taking a deep breath and
exhaling slowly, gently, he seems to sink into a deep state of relaxation. In a
soft voice, he directs me to click the first button. I suddenly see on the
SuperCollider oscilloscope window an image of several very low frequency sine
waves. Their frequencies are so low I can’t hear any of them. I look over to
the old man and see a gentle smile on his face. I assume this must be the phase
cancellation process he had described earlier. I look at the old man and he
seems to be in a very deep sleep, his eyes appear to be moving behind his
closed eyelids as it happens in REM sleep. About a minute later I’m startled by
a very low and distant voice; a basso profundo coming from the professor, a
voice I don’t recognize as his. The voice tells me to click on the next two
buttons in sequence, which I do with a growing sense of unease. I look at the
screens and see the images of his sister’s artwork becoming more active; their
shapes, textures and colors mutating, changing over time into very different
patterns and landscapes from where they had original begun. This seems to have
activated the SuperCollider synthesis program that is now producing sounds of
different frequencies, amplitudes, timbre and articulation; creating shifting
textures of varying complexity that seem to correspond to the changing images
of his sister’s art. The sounds are projected through an array of eight speakers
the professor has distributed around the room creating a surround-sound effect
that gives me the sensation of being immersed in a kind of environment, a kind
of substance: a veritable roiling ocean of sounds and images. For several
minutes I sit watching and listening enthralled, I look over at the professor
and see that except for very shallow breathing, he is absolutely motionless. I
turn my head back toward the computer screens and as I do I seem to hear a low
frequency humming or churning sound. I move my head slightly to the left and
then slightly to the right and I think I hear something like a low-pitched
mumbling or chanting whose origin I can’t place. I get up from the chair and
walk around the studio slowly moving my head in one direction and then the
other trying to locate the source. I hear a sudden sound coming from the
professor and see he is clutching frenetically at the armrests of the chair and
shaking violently from head to toe. In a panic I leap back toward the desk
realizing the old man never explained how to get him out of his trance should
anything go wrong. I look at the computer monitors and see a dark figure dart
across the screen where the artworks are. Another figure quickly glides past
and then another. The ceiling and the desk lamps begin to flicker wildly. The
monitor where the sound synthesis code was has now gone black and a stream of
large, bright green symbols unknown to me stream up and down the screen in a
kind of cascading motion. I look back at the professor and see he is now
convulsing madly and foaming at the mouth. In the other monitor screen I see
the dark, bat-like figures the professor had described earlier, arrayed in
concentric circles turning in opposite directions from each other and I begin
to hear too a kind of speech consisting of metallic like clicking and electric
buzzing sounds coming through the studio’s speakers. All of a sudden a
terrifying scream rents the room like a lightning bolt and I see the professor
sitting up straight in his chair, eyes and mouth wide open as he screams
hysterically at the top of his lungs grasping at his head with both hands.
Flinging his arms toward the ceiling he collapses onto the floor sobbing as the
studio door flings open and Helena, the old man’s sister, rushes in – Allan! Allan!
– she screams – what have you done! what have you done! – she screams again and
running toward him falls to her knees and puts her arms around him. Angular
shadows are now cropping up from behind the work bench, the shelves and stacks
of equipment, they glide effortlessly along the walls, ceiling and floor
seeming to issue from the vertices of the room’s corners. In sheer terror, I
pull myself together and lurch toward the study door and in one sudden move
push myself through the threshold and sluggishly, as if in a dream, amble down
the darkened hallway toward the glass paneled door and the foyer behind it
awkwardly bumping into the paper clad walls in a daze. I reach the foyer door
and clutching the handle fling it open in a fury. The door slams against the
wall shattering several of the glass panels, the shards fall to the carpeted
floor with a muffled clinking sound. In a frenzy I pull at the front door
[stop??] and throw it to the side and frenetically begin fumbling with the many
bolts, latches and locks the door is fitted with. Behind me I hear cries and
screams issuing from the professor and his sister and behind them, the hypnotic
chanting of the metallic, insect-like voices of the shadow creatues. Seconds
seem to stretch into minutes and minutes into hours as I struggle with the door
until finally, I undo the last latch and unlock the last lock and mustering all
my strength pull the heavy metal door open and leap onto the steps that lead to
the side walk outside. I turn around and with fear and anger, slam the door
shut. I stand still listening. All I hear are the normal street sounds of a
late fall afternoon; the occasional sound of traffic and passersby and a few
sparrows squabbling over some crumbs of food on the sidewalk. Puting the hood of
my coat over my head I turn north and begin walking at a fast pace
up Noordeinde street
into the late afternoon’s drizzle, past the queen’s working palace, heading out
of the old Zeeheldenkwartier. I walk up to Mauritskade and the canal that runs
along side it and cross over onto Zeestraat heading north toward
Scheveningseweg. In a few minutes I reach the inersection of Javastraat and
Scheveningseweg and veer slightly to the west onto the latter. In a few more
minutes I’m walking past Carnegie Plain and the Vredespaleis; the Peace Palace
where the International Tribunal resides.
as I walk on in a panic
frenetically against the north
wind every so often turning my
head looking back over my
shoulder I begin to mutter I don’t know what I’m uttering perhaps out of fear and anger I’m cursing I mutter to myself as I walk along I can’t understand what I’m saying I seem to hear myself say my
dreams disown me perhaps I’m
chanting at the wind and rain at the dark rolling sky soon Scheveningseweg bends straight
north and as I reach the old sycamore
trees that line the avenue not knowing why I begin to run at first slowly then
at an even and moderate pace
the cold drizzle-laden breeze
gently caresses my face as I run I settle into a kind of mesmerized
state soon I’m running through the
Scheveningse Bosjes park on my right and the Zorgvliet park on my left in time
I begin to sing perhaps I’m
chanting maybe I’m speaking in
tongues as I seem to hear another voice whispering again a
life still mine it says a
still life mine in bits and
pieces girones de viento in shreds of breezes speaking
all sorts of things rush by,
all that and much more rushed by,
what does it river mean?
by foot or on the wing becoming and
going
into off course with a smile
a stray stream into endings just
beginning
accidental and resisting foiled interest into messy
logic
other territories from discourses
ended
divisive islets of meaning
meandering as growing sand banks
move across the page careening
whenever and ever as whatever it
means to mean
the sea helps to place a space a
splace
splicing the place and the space
into two overlapping waves licking
there is why a wall to ask a mark
because becomes turned alleged question before to
speak in knots which is to say what a cul de sac
a ledge where a voice is what and
who speaks of it
terminated breathing as song initiated at
moments before a blank page
wavefunction as what
be before becomes comes into
being be cuase be becomes why
laid bare bore because agape in cloudlessness
be because becomes be caused
became turned away things turned
out
commencing here against each other
and
one another as be before goes round
unfolding into answer
wrapped around which wrap around
what
which wrap round afternoon moment
turned
unfolding said it is said and what
of it
is what and why the in as it is a
trace to sentence falling
the only of which it is the of
of it itself as de-forming into chiaroscuro
as eye language just begun
by no to something nothing is but
what to remains of motions
terminated
there is and much more that is to
say what
and then pushing what words wait
for thought
spacing
sign flotsam discombobulation
some
jetsam to forget
and then some more again so what of
it
it means what it is what means it
is
-guished from each other
-sively ideological
nobody now knows what dissipation’s wren
a talk in a breeze of doubt
to what of it and then some edges
left to the to
undo the what it is that these are
a tangent of
is almost a say
the page where on when
the moment to each and away
another to which
is or is not on debris is on
on as away
is a bare is a or is on a
cloudlesssstreaming
sensual
so what of it
it means a what
it is it means
we
each kept each we kept
a then now and when in what to
which to say a violet
Listening to the whirls.
Una maraña de cosas, all tangled up in sound
In formation with - or lately at least –
More variety in the form of
repetition
another time around;
This continuity to which “I”
belongs.
means by a sea repeating
reproduced enough becomes
into being because
such that enough again restriction ended
to antipathy this day of clear
cut divisions
moans by a sea retreating so
tiresome the things
and meaning the names now droop
away
what breath blows what leaves into sun’s waves coalesce
whose inflection beyond prone
language something sometimes
remains ended
motions piece a blank plank across
out by the telling reasons with light
interjections scrambled
howl’s appropriate place is when
and now a remains
from which broken erroneous formation message
continuity gap agape frozen circuit
explosive
meaning “I” as of in the with what
distinction plenty marks a place
enough
more resting just begun
endings growing again meaning laid
bare because things and
one answers became speak
a ledge terminated and then it is
what –sively and then these the page away is then by now a means
such that this day of clear cut
erosions began deforming
languaging
landscapes of languages colliding
as wheat against blue to light of fiction
fricative
nasal plosives in-
formation with or lately at least
all sorts,
all that what and does rushed
by on foot talking
at speaking becomes smile
knots
freely disproportionate into a reduced version of this continuity
as something other than working against the
shaping
final fallen
repetition I mean
plenty marks a place
some so such and so such is
enough
such that enough some so much said
made so
gives this constantly summer into
interactive about which just then so remembers
what this is stories foreigneous ‘n everything
just because discovered at intrusive of when is then
windblown light about which of
these so figured words
wait in wobbly places
so much so
words
more much so that then enough much
so
that made when is said so much
so said that them words
again seldom said begun again so said and
Interjections with
scrambled howls approximate
change remains sometimes
appropriate wandering
up ended motions now piece a blank
page
listening to the whereabouts of
when
what words were
saying in swirls churning this thought in
something making here a petal
liking them they think not only who as much or any some not what
will they
when a knot make unwinding pauses
what when were you saying what an intent was
that were saying is overgrown
should be in thought translated as
whisper interjections change up-ended listening
were saying something think
not will they what
that translating whisper howls at blank page
so much across
coalescing language
telling reasons said so much
more than enough
sometimes changes
I find myself wandering near the
area where Scheveningseweg bends slightly east becoming Prins Willemstraat
which, in turn, veers north-east becoming Juriaan Kokstraat taking me into the
town of Scheveningen proper where the street changes name again becoming Gevers
Deynootweg; the large avenue that runs parallel to the Scheveningen beach on
the North Sea.
I walk in a daze for a while
oblivious of the traffic and the crowds that frequent this busy part of the
town and then head for the beach. Once there I make a sharp right toward the
east in the direction of a town called Wassenaar. I walk past the old hotel,
the Kuurhuis, the Skyview pier and the vacant nudist beach, then, onward to Het
Puntje and the wooden stairs that will lead me up the dune to where the old
German bunkers stand.
The beach extends for miles and miles, not
a soul can be seen. In the distance, I hear a ship’s foghorn. The night is
rapidly closing in. A cold, damp breeze picks up from the sea bringing in more
rain down from a roiling, dark gray sky. In time, I see Het Puntje and the
wooden stairs that rise up to the dark silent shapes of the bunkers on the
grassy dune-tops. They look like patient sentinels, silently looking out to the
watery horizon, reminding me of the moai of Easter Island. I amble up the old
wooden stairs toward the dark looming shapes of the bunkers. Once there,
standing at the top of the dune, I turn my gaze back to the sea I
feel the cold breeze pleasantly caress my face and see a heavy bank of fog
moving slowly on the surface of the water toward the shore I mutter to the sea I mutter to the darkness as I turn around
and move further on up the dune until I reach a rusty old sign that says Verboten!: Forbidden! hanging from the fence that separates the field of
bunkers from the pedestrian path.
I reach for the fence’s barbed wires and
with both hands pull them apart. I duck under and in between and soon find
myself in a field of tall, blond grasses heading uneasily toward a bunker.
I wonder if there might be any old land
mines left over from the war. Inland, in the distance behind me, in the midst
of the Scheveningen wilderness-preserve, the old water tower’s light dimly
illuminates the southern façade of the bunker; it is covered in graffiti. I wander aimlessly for a while among the
tall grasses and weeds that grow everywhere
until I find what I’m looking for
muttering to the breeze I lay myself down in a furrow carved out
in the sand by the north wind
covered over by a scrub of weeds and grasses snug in my overcoat feet pointing toward the gray North
Sea belly warm with the contents of
the flask in my pocket I mutter
again to the breeze
a life still mine I hear it whisper back in
bits and pieces strung together in word metal scraps a still life mine I hear it whisper a
life in bits and pieces strung
together in word metal scraps same old words same old scraps a patch work a million times over and then some more and then again I mutter to the sand again
I mutter to the sea to the
sand to the pale tall grasses leaning over me I mutter to the dark rolling sky I mutter to the graffiti covered walls of
the bunkers nearby and the fog . . .
the cold gray fog seeping into everything
Acknowledgement
Some sections
of Dr. Sarturnian’s Monologue are
composites made of bits and pieces taken
1)
Adorno, Th. W., “La posición del narrador
en la novella contemporánea,” Notas Sobre Literatura, Obra Completa, 11,
De la edición de bolsillo, Ediciones Akal, S.A., 2003, Sector Foresta, 1, 28760
Tres Cantos, Madrid, España. My
translation.
(Adorno,
Theodor W., “The Position of the Narrator
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Endnotes
2. The loudeness (or
volume) of a sound which is a function of how much energy a sound has.
3. The frequency and
amplitude information in the attack of a sound which are determining factors in
that sound’s timbre (or tone color) and which enable our ears to identify the
source of sounds and, distinguish one sound from another, e.g., the sound of a
violin from that of a flute
4. In Electronic and
computer music, a patch is a
constellation or system of generators and processors (also known as Unit
Generators or UG) which are connected to each other and which generate and
process signals. There are different types of generators and processors. For
example, a White Noise generador generates a kind of noise called White Noise.
A High Pass Filter is a type of signal processor which allows through only high
frequencies from a signal. If we were to connect the White Noise generador to
the High Pass Filter, we would only hear the higher frequencies of the White
Noise.
5. SuperCollider 3 is
an object-oriented programing language for sound synthesis and digital signal
processing originally created by James McCartney in 1996. In 2002, when he
joined the Apple Core Audio Team, he released SC under the terms of the GNU
General Public License. SC3 is now developed and maintained by an active and enthusiastic community. It can be
downloaded for free at http://supercollider.sourceforge.net.
6. i.e., patches.
7. A kind of Unit
Generator that controls a signal’s attack, sustain, amplitude and duration.
8. Frequency
Modulation syntesis is an electronic music technique where the timbre of a
waveform (the carrier) is changed by modulating its frequency with the
frequency of another waveform (the modulator) that is also in the audio range.
The result is a more complex waveform with a different timbre. There can be
multiple Carriers and modulators which make for even more complex timbres and
sound textures.
9. Fast Fourier
Transform is a technique used in computer music to analyze the frequency
content of a sound’s spectra. Complex waveforms can be deconstructed into
combinations of simple waves of different amplitudes, frequencies and phases.
10. Granulation or
Granulation Synthesis is a technique used in computer music in which an
electronically generated sound or a sound file is broken up into very small
fragments called grains. These grains can be used as building blocks for larger
sound objects as when they are scattered to form cloud-like structures or
organizad into streams.
11. In digital signal
processing, aliasing (also known as foldover) is a kind of distortion that
occurs when the sampling rate of a sound is more than one-half of the sampling
rate. Half of the sampling rate is called the Nyquist frequency. So, if we have
a sampling rate of 20,000 Hz (where the Nyquist frequency is 10,000 Hz) and we
are trying to sample a sound that has a frequency of 12,000Hz (2000Hz higher
than the Nyquist frequency) we will get foldover or aliasing with a resulting
sound that has a frequency of 8000 Hz. Aliasing can produce some interesting
sound artifacts.
