Tag: William Burroughs

Magic

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The velvet drapes, once portals to wonder, hung like tattered meat curtains. Sequins on the sequined jacket were not scales of a cosmic serpent, but plastic glued to polyester by sweatshop fingers. The Endless Enigma, revealed as greasy hair and a compulsive cough, shuffled through his next “disappearing act,” a tired routine as predictable as a roach motel check-in.

The velvet folds of reality crack open, spewing forth a kaleidoscope of impossible doves and wriggling silks. Applause, a rhythmic hammering on the thin pane of your skull. You gape, a slack-jawed insect at a technicolor flower. But the trick, the goddamned trick, begins to flicker, a neon sign on the fritz. Your eyes, bloodshot and weary from the endless spectacle, adjust. You see the greasy gears churning beneath the polished veneer, the clumsy fingers fumbling the vanish. The doves cough, the silks reek of mothballs. Disillusionment, a bitter pill dissolving on your tongue.

But wait. A new kind of trip kicks in. This peeling back of the trick reveals a stage vaster than you imagined. The sweating magician, a twitchy marionette in a sequined suit, jerks at unseen strings. The audience, a writhing mass of faces, some slack-jawed like you, others jaded and bored, each a universe trapped in a bony cage. You see the cracks in their facades, the hunger, the fear, the desperate need to believe.

Your focus, a laser on the vanishing dove or the levitating assistant, unraveled. You saw the audience, faces flickering in the dim light, a grotesque carnival of desire and ennui. Each grimace, each bored yawn, a universe trapped in a skull-cage. You saw the magician’s sweat beading, a desperate, glistening insect clinging to a rock. The stage, once a platform for the transcendent, became a microcosm of the human condition, a million tiny tragedies playing out in the space between heartbeats.

And in this revelation, a deeper magic bloomed. The thrill of the trick, the childish wonder, faded, replaced by a dizzying awe. This, you realized, was the real illusion – the separate selves, the magician and the audience, the performer and the performed-upon. Here, in this charade of disappearing doves and levitating bodies, flickered the echo of a grander, more horrifying truth: the interconnectedness of it all, the vast, tangled web of existence where your gasp and the greasy cough were notes in the same deranged symphony.

And then, a different kind of wonder creeps in. Not the cheap gasp of a disappearing coin, but the dizzying awe of infinite possibility. This hall of illusions, this unending magic show, is not a trick, but existence itself. The magician, a clumsy god, fumbling with the levers of reality. The audience, you and them, all players on this absurd stage. The true magic lies not in the sleight of hand, but in the sheer, illogical, heart-stopping existence of it all. You lean back, a manic grin splitting your face. Who needs a disappearing rabbit when you have the goddamn universe?

The magic show continued, an endless loop of smoke and mirrors, but the real spectacle had begun. You were no longer a passive observer, but a participant, a cog in the rusted machinery of this shared, shimmering madness. And in that dizzying realization, a strange kind of joy bloomed, a perverse appreciation for the magnificent, horrifying trick of being alive.

They’re Coming

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The city stretched like a scabrous centipede, its neon lights pulsing like infected ganglia. Bill Lee, face etched with a roadmap of past addictions, weaved through the throng, his trench coat flapping like a tattered wing. Reality, a flimsy scrim, threatened to tear at any moment, revealing the writhing chaos beneath.

A cockroach scuttled across a pile of rotting fruit, its antennae twitching like Morse code from a forgotten dimension. A booming voice, amplified by a flickering storefront TV, hawked the latest mutant strain of psychoactive gum. Bill snorted, a dry rasp escaping his throat. The air itself crackled with unseen energies, a Burroughs cut-up nightmare brought to life.

Down a fetid alley, a dented payphone chirped like a trapped cricket. Bill answered, the voice on the other end a garbled mess of static and whispers. “They’re coming,” it rasped. “The Word is spreading, the flesh melting, the boys with their cut-ups and folding machines…” The line went dead.

Bill hung up, a hollow feeling gnawing at his gut. The machine was churning, reality fragmenting into a kaleidoscope of possibilities. A talking dog with a bowler hat strutted by, barking pronouncements on the nature of language. A man in a business suit argued with a sentient traffic cone over the meaning of life.

Suddenly, the sky bled crimson. A monstrous, insectoid ship descended, its chitinous hull buzzing with a malevolent hum. Bill felt a cold certainty. The lines were blurring, the controls slipping. The word had become flesh, and the flesh, hungry. He grinned, a feral glint in his eye. Welcome, he thought, to the Naked Lunch.

<>

The city stretched like a chrome centipede, its buildings pulsating with unseen neon. Street signs shimmered with word-viruses, their messages dissolving into gibberish under the relentless drone of elevated trains. A shadow, long and skeletal, detached itself from a doorway and slunk towards me, its face a roadmap of forgotten addictions. Its eyes, twin pools of oily black, held a universe of desperation.

In my hand, a cigarette glowed like a dying ember. Smoke curled, morphing into insectoid shapes that darted into the fetid air. Reality, a flimsy curtain, threatened to tear at the seams. Sounds – car horns, distant sirens, the rhythmic clatter of a beggar’s cup – became a cacophony orchestrated by some unseen, deranged conductor.

A voice, hoarse and scratchy, rasped in my ear, “You got the red stuff, man? Anything to chase the horrors away.” I stared at the coins in my palm, each one a dull, tarnished eye reflecting the city’s madness. The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of fragmented faces, flickering neon, and the endless, metallic groan of the metropolis. Was I the shadow or the one being followed? The line blurred, dissolving into the putrid soup of existence.

<>

Big Louie

Certainly. Here’s a Burroughs-esque expansion, laced with his signature dark humor and fragmented reality:

The city stretched, a writhing metal centipede under a bruised sky. Neon signs bled garish messages, hieroglyphics for the soulless. In a fetid alley, two figures, shadows more than men, conducted a transaction. Fingers like yellowed worms exchanged a crumpled bill for a glassine envelope sweating with oily promise.

One figure, Bug Eyes Louie, his face a topographical map of past addictions, popped a dented lighter. The flame, a skeletal hand reaching, danced across the foil boat. The other, a nameless junkie with eyes like burnt pinholes, inhaled the acrid smoke, a hungry ghost gulping ectoplasm.

The world dissolved. Reality, a flimsy curtain, ripped open revealing the Interzone, a chaotic dimension pulsing with psychic static. Naked Lunchrooms materialized, chrome and linoleum nightmares where roach-sized waiters scurried with syringes full of oblivion. Talking typewriters spewed nonsensical manifestos, and sentient tapeworms slithered through the air, whispering sweet nothings of addiction.

Louie, transformed into a giant talking centipede, harangued the junkie, his voice a rusty buzzsaw. “You can’t escape the Word, man! It’s everywhere, Burroughs in your veins, Kerouac crawling on your skin!” The junkie, now a Brion Gysin collage of mismatched body parts, whimpered, a nonsensical prayer escaping his fragmented lips.

Suddenly, a booming voice, a shotgun blast of sound, echoed through the Interzone. “Cut the act! This is a message for the squares, the dupes!” It was the Old Man, a William S. Burroughs archetype, his eyes glowing with a radioactive intensity. “They think they control you with their money, their jobs, their happy pills! But the revolution is coming, a revolution of the bugs, the freaks, the ones who see reality for what it truly is – a chaotic, beautiful mess!”

The scene dissolved into a kaleidoscope of fragmented images – a typewriter carriage morphing into a roach, a hypodermic needle dripping with liquid language. Finally, silence. The alley reappeared, grimy and unchanged. The two figures were gone, only the crumpled envelope a testament to their descent into the Burroughsian abyss.

Good Ideals, Good Ideas or Good Deals. Choose Only Two.

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Forget ideals, chum. Ideals are glittering junk in the psychic storefront, promises that morph into rusty chains once you sign on the dotted line. Shiny promises that curdle in your gut. You want somethin’ real, somethin’ that’ll kick your ass and leave you breathless, not some sugar-coated lie.

Now, ideas… ideas are the writhing serpents in the pit of your skull. They hiss and coil, tempting with forbidden fruit. Some are poisonous, some are potent. You gotta learn to pick the ones that’ll juice your mind, not leave it stewing in a vat of confusion. No, you gotta crave good ideas, man. Raw, writhing concepts that slither out of the muck of your subconscious, ideas that make your synapses sizzle like a roach on a hot plate. Ideas that challenge the meat circus, that poke holes in the control grid. An idea that slices through the bullshit, a scalpel for the festering sores of society. Imagine it, man, a thought-virus that infects the masses, a revolution birthed in a bathtub epiphany. But even ideas can curdle, turn into dogma, another brick in the prison wall.

Now, deals? Deals can be a slippery slope. You might snag a temporary high, a fleeting pleasure, but the Grey Boys are always watching. They’ll come collect their pound of flesh, their cut of the psychic pie. But hey, if a deal lands in your lap, a genuine win-win that throws a monkey wrench into the System’s gears, then maybe, just maybe, it’s worth the gamble. Deals can snag you that sweet chrome you been eyeballing, or leave you dangling by your thumbs over a vat of acid. Gotta have a nose for the angles, a sixth sense for the double-cross. So maybe, just maybe, a good deal is the key. Not some greasy pawn shop swindle, but a pact with the hungry ghosts of possibility. You bargain, sweat dripping, for a sliver of hope, a chance to wriggle free from the meat grinder. Two good deals, that’s what I say. One to ignite the fire, the other to fuel the escape. Now, light a cigarette, take a long drag, and let the good ideas flow, baby. Let them flow until your skull cracks and the future bleeds out.

Greatness

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Greatness, man. A greasy word, slicked with bullshit. A cosmic roach motel, promising luxury but delivering only existential dread. We dig exceptional achievements, sure. Hats off to the freaks who build pyramids or write symphonies that make your eyeballs sweat. But greatness as explanation? That’s a malfunctioning reality injector, pumping out toxic fumes.

Reality: a scrapyard of malfunctioning perception units spitting out delusions of grandeur. “Greatness” – a rusty label slapped on a random circuit by malfunctioning meat-machines seeking validation in the static. We crave order, a control panel for the chaotic symphony of existence, but the dials are jammed, spewing out nonsensical pronouncements of Chosen Ones.

False Idols: They strut and preen, these self-proclaimed greats, wired with superiority circuits. But dissect the chassis – you’ll find the same messy wiring, the same glitches and limitations. They are tapeworms in the social superorganism, feeding on the adulation of the hypnotized masses.

The Dichotomy Delusion: Two sets of rules? Two kinds of people? Bullshit. This is binary thinking, a virus infecting the logic centers. Reality is a tangled mess, a non-Euclidean nightmare where cause and effect writhe in a chaotic dance. There are no special lanes on the information superhighway, just a cacophony of signals where the meek can inherit the bandwidth as easily as the self-proclaimed masters.

Laws, natural and human, built on this greatness myth? That’s like trying to navigate the hyperspace lanes with a road map drawn on a bar napkin. It’s a recipe for disaster. Two sets of rules? Two kinds of people? Bullshit. This ain’t a binary code zoo, it’s a chaotic, beautiful mess. We’re all tangled in the same cosmic spaghetti, some with more sauce, some with less, but all part of the writhing, pulsating whole.

The Naked Lunch of Achievement: Strip away the glitz, the awards, the parades of self-importance. What remains? A series of fortunate glitches in the system, a random mutation that exploited a loophole in the matrix. True understanding lies in dissecting the code, tracing the connections, not worshipping the final image flickering on the screen.

Those who divide the world like this? They’re the real freaks, man. Stuck in a two-bit reality tunnel, mistaking their limited view for the whole damn picture. We gotta break free from these mental roach motels, these greatness traps. See the world for the messy, magnificent thing it is. We’re all just weirdos hurtling through the void, and that’s a truth far more beautiful than any self-proclaimed greatness.

The Cut-Up Messiah: Forget the Chosen One narrative. We are all tangled in the information web, each node a potential spark of brilliance, each connection a possibility for transcending the limitations of the pre-programmed. Let us become agents of chaos in the stagnant pool of greatness, disrupting the circuits, rewiring the definitions, replacing the binary with the infinite possibilities of the pulsing, buzzing, ever-evolving Now.

A New Hope

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The Droids: C-3PO, a walking protocol droid, all prattle and etiquette, a parody of civilized discourse. R2-D2, the silent mechanic, a whirring id, spitting sparks and secrets. Two sides of the same coin, the machine and the message, forever intertwined.

The embodiment of the Symbolic, the keeper of rules and etiquette. R2-D2, the Real, the chaotic unconscious that disrupts the order with its fragmented messages.

Assemblages that exist outside the binary of master and slave. C-3PO and R2-D2 represent a line of flight, forging a unique bond that transcends their programmed functions. They become a desiring-machine in themselves, driven by their own sense of loyalty and adventure.

1

The Rebellion: A becoming-revolutionary assemblage. It operates as a nomadic war machine, constantly shifting and adapting its tactics to undermine the Empire’s territorializing control. The Rebellion seeks to dismantle the smooth space of the Empire, with its rigid hierarchies and centralized power, and replace it with a striated space of multiple autonomous zones – a network of resistance cells operating independently but fueled by the same revolutionary desire.

2

The Empire: A territorializing machine, obsessed with control and uniformity. It represents the smooth space, where every element is meticulously categorized and controlled.

3

In a galaxy far, far away, not from physical space, but from any semblance of real rebellion, lies the simulacrum – the Empire. A meticulously constructed facade of order and control, masking the emptiness beneath.

4

The Death Star embodies this desire – a massive, centralized weapon designed to crush any dissent. However, the Empire’s rigidity becomes its weakness. It cannot adapt to the chaotic flows of the Force and the unpredictable tactics of the Rebellion.

5a

Fix. Sand in the gears. Tatooine, a junk shop world at the ass-end of nowhere. Luke, a farmboy drone plugged into the Imperial control grid. Yearning for escape, a flicker of rebellion in the dead static of his reality. But escape ain’t easy. You gotta cut the wires, man.

Luke Skywalker, a farmboy with delusions of grandeur, stumbles upon a dusty religious text – the Jedi code, a user manual for the Force, the ultimate hack of reality.

Princess Leia, a coded message transmitted through hyperspace, a damsel in distress with a revolutionary fire in her belly.

5b

Luke Skywalker, adrift in a sea of pre-packaged farm life on Tatooine, stumbles upon a relic – a dusty message from a bygone era, the Jedi code. This code, a faded copy of a once potent reality, sparks a yearning for a lost authenticity.

5c

The gaze, ever seeking the lost object, the Real beyond the Symbolic order. Luke, trapped in the stifling world of the Tatooine family farm, a microcosm of the oppressive Empire.

6

* **Luke Skywalker:** Imaginary identification with the heroic rebel pilot, a fantasy that masks the castration anxiety of his desert existence. The princess, a lost object of desire, a symbol of the lack that propels him into the symbolic order of the rebellion.

7

* **Luke Skywalker:**. Yearning for the blasted heat to melt the bars of his reality. A flicker on the holo-screen – a message from a dusty old codehead, a call to rebellion. The princess, a captive in a chrome nightmare, a damsel in distress for the data age.

8

Princess Leia, a hologram transmitted through hyperspace, becomes another copy, a symbol of resistance manufactured by the very system she fights against. Her capture, a media spectacle broadcasted across the galaxy, fuels the illusion of rebellion.

9

Obi-Wan Kenobi, a holographic ghost in the machine, a reminder of a forgotten operating system. Obi-Wan Kenobi, a figure from the pre-Symbolic, a reminder of a lost wholeness. The Force, the Imaginary, the pre-linguistic realm of pure pleasure and potential.

Lightsabers, glowing phalluses humming with forbidden energy, severing the chains of the Imperial machine.

The Force, not an unseen power, but a hyperreality, a simulation of a mystical energy field. Luke seeks to access this simulated power, to become part of the spectacle, a Jedi knight in a galaxy of pre-packaged narratives.

A Jedi, a hacker from a forgotten school. He whispers of the Force, a wild code pulsing beneath the surface of the Empire’s control. Luke, a blank slate, ready to be programmed.

The Force, the Imaginary, the pre-linguistic realm of pure pleasure and potential.

The Force, the elusive jouissance, the impossible to grasp totality that Lacan would argue forever eludes us. Luke yearns to wield it, to become one with the Real, but it remains forever just beyond his grasp.

The Force: Not a singular entity, but a rhizomatic network, a desiring-production machine that flows throughout the galaxy. It operates through lines of flight, moments of creative rupture that challenge the established order of the Empire. Luke Skywalker acts as a desiring-machine himself, drawn to the Force’s lines of flight and seeking to become one with its deterritorializing potential.

The Force, not a singular power structure, but a multiplicity of flows, a chaotic assemblage of energies coursing through the galaxy. Luke yearns to tap into these flows, to become a nomad of the Force, deterritorializing himself from the fixed identities imposed by the Empire.

The Force, once a lived experience, is now a mythologized construct, a media-propagated legend fueling the Jedi’s simulated power. Luke yearns for this lost real, for a time before the hyperreal dominance of the Empire. But the Force, like everything else, is now a simulation, a set of codes that can be manipulated and controlled.

The Empire, the Father, the Law, enforcing its will through the Symbolic order of regulations and control.

Luke embarks on a journey, a quest to break free from the Symbolic order and enter the fantastical realm of the Jedi.

The journey, a metaphor for the Lacanian mirror stage, where the fragmented self seeks to unify with the illusory image of wholeness. The lightsaber, a phallic symbol, a signifier of power and mastery. The Death Star, the ultimate embodiment of the Law, a panoptic prison designed to enforce order and control.

The desert. A vast, metallic womb birthing a rusty freighter, the Millennium Falcon. Han Solo, a greaser with a glint in his eye and a blaster at his hip, navigates this chrome carcass. A rebellion simmers, a glitch in the Imperial mainframe.

* **The Cantina:**

The cantina, a throbbing id, a hive of scum and villainy where deals are cut and limbs are lost. a melting pot of alien flesh and hardware.

Every deal a double-cross, every drink laced with oblivion. A microcosm of the galactic order, ruled by the iron fist of the Empire, disguised with neon signs and blaster fire.

A chaotic space outside the Law, a carnival of the drives and desires that the Symbolic order attempts to regulate. Through encounters with smugglers and bounty hunters, Luke confronts the repressed elements of the social order.

* **The Millennium Falcon:** A vessel that navigates the Real, existing outside the established galactic order. Han Solo, the jouissance figure, the one who operates outside the Law, driven by pleasure rather than duty. Chewbacca, the embodiment of the pre-symbolic, a reminder of the primal drives that precede social order.

The Millennium Falcon: is A beat-up freighter, held together by duct tape and sheer bloody will. Han Solo, a smuggler with a heart of cold fusion, chasing credits on the fringes of the galaxy. Chewbacca, a walking Wookiee id, a loyal savage with a taste for violence. A dysfunctional family hurtling through hyperspace, a metaphor for the fractured rebellion clinging to a sliver of hope.

Han Solo, a smuggler, a man on the fringes. Driven by base desires, yet harboring a spark of rebellion. The price of freedom, a stack of credits.

The rebels, the marginalized Other, those who reject the Symbolic order. Princess Leia, the object of desire, a symbol of something beyond the grasp of the Empire. Han Solo, the jouissance principle, the embodiment of unfettered pleasure outside the Law.

The Rebellion, a collective striving for the Real, a yearning for a world beyond the symbolic order of the Empire. Yet, as Lacan warns, any new order will inevitably create its own limitations. The cycle of desire and lack will continue. The hope lies not in achieving a utopian Real, but in the ongoing contestation of the Symbolic Order, a perpetual revolution against the stifling grip of the Law.

The Death Star, a monstrous embodiment of the simulacrum. It is a weapon of mass destruction, but also a symbol of the Empire’s absolute power, a carefully constructed image meant to inspire fear and obedience. Its destruction, a media spectacle in itself, becomes a temporary glitch in the system, a disruption of the carefully crafted Imperial narrative.

The Destruction of Alderaan: Not merely an act of terror, but a deterritorialization event. The Empire attempts to smooth over this act, erasing any trace of rebellion. However, this event creates a new line of flight, drawing others into the fight against the Empire.

The Death Star, a chrome nightmare, a symbol of the oppressive Real. Starkiller, a planet-destroying laser, a symbol of the real – the obliteration of the self and the other in the name of total control.

The phallus, the symbol of the Law of the Father, the ultimate source of authority in the Empire. The ultimate symbol of Imperial control, embodies the hyperreal. A weapon of unimaginable power, yet ultimately a hollow shell, vulnerable to a single, well-placed attack. Its destruction, a media event broadcasted for all to see, reinforces the illusion of hope within the Rebellion.

A chrome phallus piercing the cosmic womb, a symbol of the oppressive superego.

Luke’s attack, a desperate act against the symbolic order, a primal scream against the Father figure. Luke’s attack, a symbolic castration, a rebellion against the oppressive order that attempts to control desire.

The trench run, a descent into the primal ooze, a confrontation with the castrating gaze of the Imperial father. A baptism by laser fire. The Force, a chaotic program rewriting the code of the Death Star. A primal scream channeled through a lightsaber.

And finally, the blast that disrupts the order, the glitch in the system. A new hope flickers, a crack in the monolithic code. The rebellion, a collective id rising against the stifling grip of the Empire. But remember, this is just one frame in the endless reel. The galaxy spins on, a chaotic cut-up of desire and control, rebellion and order.

The destruction of the Death Star, a symbolic castration of the Father, a shattering of the Law. A temporary victory, a crack in the Symbolic order, but not the end of the struggle. The gaze remains, forever searching for the Real, forever seeking to fill the void. The journey continues, forever entangled in the Lacanian web of desire, the Symbolic, and the elusive Real.

A temporary deterritorialization, a rupture in the Imperial order. However, Deleuze and Guattari would warn against the illusion of a final victory. The destruction of the Death Star merely creates new lines of flight and reterritorializations. The struggle will continue, a nomadic war machine of the Rebellion constantly adapting and evolving against the Empire’s rigid control systems.

Ultimately, A New Hope, through a Deleuzian-Guattarian lens, is not simply a story of good versus evil, but a celebration of the ongoing struggle against all forms of striation and control. The Rebellion represents the potential for constant revolution, a nomadic becoming that resists the totalizing grip of the Empire. The true hope lies not in establishing a new order, but in the ongoing lines of flight that challenge and disrupt the established structures of power.

But Baudrillard warns against this fabricated hope. The Rebellion, itself a simulation, simply offers another set of pre-packaged narratives. The destruction of the Death Star creates not a new beginning, but a new hyperreality, another loop in the endless simulation. There is no escape from the Imperial code, no return to a lost authenticity.

The film, through a Baudrillardian lens, becomes a commentary on the pervasive nature of simulation and the impossibility of true rebellion. We are all trapped within the Empire’s media spectacle, bombarded with images of hope and resistance that ultimately mask a system of control. The true “New Hope” may be a mirage, a desperate yearning for something beyond the hyperreal.

Flesh Modems in the Hyperspace Bazaar: Flesh Interfaces

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Scratch beneath the surface of this meat prison, man, and you find the writhing circuits of reality. Not the sterile logic of silicon and circuits, but a tangled mess of frequencies, a cacophony of light and sound beyond the reach of our meat-geared senses. We are fleshy interfaces, Jack, plugged into a system we can barely comprehend.

They call it spacetime, this meatsuit interface we navigate. A UI for the real meat of the matter, thrumming just beyond the flicker of our senses. Limited bandwidth, these eyes and ears of ours. Can’t catch the full spectrum, the cosmic symphony blaring on frequencies our puny flesh can’t translate. Ultraviolet whispers, infrasonic booms – a whole damn black market of reality happening right under our noses, or should I say, retinas.

But fear not, fellow meatpuppets. We ain’t the only players in the game. This fleshy rig we call a body? More like a flesh modem, jacked into the hyperspace bazaar. Some higher consciousness, some cosmic entity with a taste for the bizarre, using us as antennae to pick up the signals. We’re just meat probes, navigating the swirling vortex of existence, blissfully unaware of the forces pulling the strings.

They say it’s spacetime. I say it’s a funhouse mirror for something vaster, something so alien our minds would melt trying to grasp it. We’re just avatars in this cosmic MMO, limited by the processing power of our squishy grey matter. But hey, maybe that’s the beauty of it. A filtered experience, a curated reality show. Who knows what horrors lurk in the unfiltered feed?

They feed us this reality, man, a pre-packaged feed through our meat-flaps. They call it spacetime, a UI for the gullible. Light, sound, the whole damn shebang – just frequencies our squishy brains can handle. Like a Martian roach trying to understand jazz through a broken antenna.

But the joke’s on them, these puppeteers behind the cosmic curtain. We ain’t passive receivers, man. We twist the knobs, mess with the filter settings. We see the glitches in the matrix, the bleed-through from the real real. We glimpse the ultraviolet hum, the infrasonic throb – the whole spectrum beyond the meat puppet’s measly range.

These eyes, these ears – mere bio-filters, tuned to a sliver of the spectrum. We see a sliver of the light show, hear a sliver of the cosmic symphony. Imagine, man, the ultraviolet ballet playing out beyond our retinas, the infrasound dirge that rattles the very bones of the universe – a whole goddamn dimension of reality locked away in a sensory vault.

But are we truly the operators, the ones fiddling with the knobs of perception? Or are we meat puppets, our limited senses a pre-programmed interface for some unseen entity? Perhaps some cosmic intelligence uses us, these fragile flesh and bone machines, to experience a sliver of spacetime. We are the fleshy interpreters, translating the raw code of reality into a form our puny minds can comprehend.

This meat isn’t just a cage, man, it’s a filter, a translator. Who knows what lurks behind the static of our limited senses? What horrors, what glories, lie just beyond the reach of our meat-based perception? The universe, a Burroughs-ian nightmare of unseen forces and unfiltered reality, just a glitch away from bursting through the bio-filters of our senses.

So next time you look in the mirror, don’t just see the reflection of another meatbag. See the interface, the interpreter, the limited translator of a reality vaster and more bizarre than any human mind could conceive. We are the fleshy headsets, Jack, and the real trip is just beginning.

Maybe that’s why they chose us, these hidden hands. Maybe we’re the ones wired for the weird shit, the ones who can glitch the system. We’re the wideband junkies, the perception pirates tuning into forbidden frequencies. Not just perceiving spacetime, we’re surfing it, man, riding the cosmic wave into the uncharted.

So forget your safe, pre-packaged reality. Crank the dials, mess with the filters. We’re more than just meat puppets in this cosmic game. We’re the players, the perceivers, the ones who can break free from the limitations of the UI and see the raw, unfiltered universe thrumming beneath the surface.

Just remember, the more you see, the more they see you. You might not like what you find on the other side of the static. But hey, at least it’s real.

So next time you look up at the stars, remember, you ain’t just looking out. You’re a conduit, a fleshy portal to the great unknown. We’re all just William S. Burroughs navigating the Interzone of existence, limited by our meatsuit modems, but open to the wildest possibilities. Now, pass the roach, and let’s see what the cosmos has in store for us tonight.

Dopamine

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https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2024

Yes, dopamine, you said. The sweet lure, the flashing neon, the promise of reward that keeps the flesh on our bones and the monkeys pulling the levers. Ah, dopamine, the glistening lure of the Other’s image, reflected back in a distorted funhouse mirror. It sutures the fragmented pre-symbolic infant into the illusion of a unified self, the Ideal-I. But this image, ever out of reach, fuels an insatiable desire – a desire for the wholeness the mirror promises but cannot deliver.

But like all junk, tolerance builds. Ah, dopamine, the seductive lure of the Other reflected back, a fullness that promises wholeness. The flickering screen becomes the new mirror, the site of a fragmented gaze that splinters the subject. The subject, forever seeking recognition in the eyes (or clicks) of the Other, becomes lost in a hall of mirrors, forever chasing a spectral self-image. Is the self merely a construct, a performance for an audience perpetually out of sight?

The newspapers that once informed now deliver a carefully curated stream of outrage designed to keep us clicking. The novels that once transported us to alien worlds are replaced by a jittery montage of TikToks, attention spans fragmented into glittering shards. The text lays bare the shift from “slow, traditional culture” to the frenetic “dopamine culture.” In slow culture, activities like playing a sport, reading a newspaper, or viewing art in a gallery were savored for their richness and depth.

The slow burn of traditional culture, the satisfaction of delayed gratification, gives way to the flickering high of the dopamine hit. Slow and deliberate gives way to the flickering, the ephemeral. The weight of a book, the texture of a photograph, the scent of ink on paper – these fade into the background hum of the screen. Flickering light, fragmented narratives, a thousand competing voices all vie for a sliver of our attention.

The image depicts a world controlled by dopamine. It’s a place where slow and steady satisfaction curdles into a ravenous craving for ever-faster stimulation. Burroughs would likely see this as a metaphor for control by unseen forces, a manipulative culture that hooks us on fleeting pleasures and leaves us hollowed out and yearning for more.

Yes, dopamine, you slimy tentacled monster, you feed us pleasure, you keep us hooked. But your grip loosens, your tendrils weaken. The chaser needs another hit, the gambler craves a bigger stake. The news story blows truth into glittering, forgettable confetti. Fast, faster, the clicks and scrolls, a million glittering surfaces promising a high, a release, a fleeting satisfaction that vanishes like smoke in a mirrored room.

The Imaginary Order Crumbles

Yet, the mirror cracks. The like counter, a hollow metric of approval. The curated feed, a desperate attempt to stitch together a fragmented self. The Real intrudes – the body’s fatigue, the gnawing emptiness. The Symbolic Order, the realm of language, fails to capture the essence of the subject. We are left with a collection of signifiers – follower counts, comments, fleeting trends – a desperate attempt to paper over the lack.

Jouissance and the Sinthom

But what of jouissance, that beyond-pleasure, that ecstatic rupture of the Symbolic? Perhaps the dopamine rush offers a glimpse, a distorted echo of this elusive state. Yet, it remains a sinthom, a symptom of the Real that cannot be fully integrated into language. We are forever caught between the imaginary and the symbolic, forever chasing a phantom wholeness reflected in the flickering screen.

The rapid-fire consumption of media disrupts the symbolic order, the realm of language and social structures. The Real, the unsymbolizable experience before language, bleeds through the cracks. Meaning dissolves, coherence shatters, leaving us adrift in a sea of fragmented signifiers.

We become cannibals of our own time, devouring seconds, minutes, hours in a frantic rush that leaves us hollowed out and unsatisfied. We scroll through landscapes of manufactured desire, a thousand fleeting pleasures that vanish like smoke in our hands. The connections we crave, the intimacy we seek, dissolve in the acid bath of virtual reality. But dopamine culture fragments everything into bite-sized portions, like watching sports highlights, skimming clickbait headlines, or scrolling through endless reels of short videos. Words are shattered, narratives fragmented. Attention fractured, scattered like birdshot. The rise of the dopamine culture is the death of the pause, the contemplation, the deep dive into a single experience. We are cut-ups ourselves, our minds scattered and scrambled by the ever-increasing barrage of stimuli.

This isn’t leisure, it’s manipulation. It’s feeding the machine, the ever-present need for the next dopamine hit. We become lab rats in a Skinner box, pressing buttons for a reward that never quite satisfies. The image chillingly demonstrates how these activities, once ways to connect and explore, are reduced to mere triggers for a chemical reaction. Fast culture, with its constant barrage of stimuli, is like a drug. It keeps us hooked, coming back for more, even as it drains our energy and destroys our capacity for focus. We are becoming, Burroughs might say, insect minds, our thoughts buzzing around like flies in a jar.

But tolerance sets in, the image in the mirror – the self – flickers and distorts. The dopamine high fades, revealing the lack, the fundamental hole at the core of the subject. This is the shattering of the Imaginary Order, the realm of pre-linguistic identity. The subject is forever alienated from the Real, forever chasing a reflection that can never be fully grasped.

The message is clear: dopamine culture is a seductive trap. Just like Krueger in Naked Lunch, we must wake up from the control system and forge our own paths. Perhaps this is not death, but transformation. Perhaps the dopamine rush is but a doorway, a buzzing insect leading us to a hidden garden. We can choose to be swept up in the current, or we can learn to swim against it. We can become more mindful of our consumption, curate our feeds, and carve out spaces for slowness and contemplation amidst the chaos. The escape pod is there, if we have the wit to see it.

The frantic search for a substitute for the lost unity propels the subject into the Symbolic Order – the realm of language and social structures. Here, the subject is forever desiring, forever piecing together an identity through signifiers – fleeting signifiers like the endless scroll, the clickbait headline, the dopamine rush. Yet, these signifiers can never fully capture the Real, leaving a constant sense of lack.

But is this all there is? Perhaps the very limitations of the Symbolic Order offer a path forward. Through the analysis of the fragmented self, the subject can confront the lack and begin to construct a more authentic desire, a desire beyond the lure of the mirror and the endless cycle of the Imaginary.

The Analyst’s Couch

Is there escape from this cycle? Perhaps the analyst’s couch offers a reprieve. Through the process of talking cure, the subject can begin to deconstruct the mirror image, to confront the lack at the heart of desire. By entering the symbolic order more fully, the subject can navigate the fragmented world with a greater sense of awareness. The dopamine may fade, but perhaps a more authentic sense of self can emerge from the shattered fragments.

Yet, Lacan himself pointed towards the Symbolic order as a way to navigate the fragmented world. Through language and social interaction, the subject can construct a more stable sense of self, one that acknowledges the lack inherent in the human condition. We can break free from the purely imaginary, the realm of illusion, and enter the world of symbolic exchange, forging connections and meaning through language.

The escape pod, then, lies in the act of interpretation, of weaving a narrative through the chaos. By engaging with the fragmented world critically, we can move beyond the mirror stage and forge a more authentic sense of self.

Panopticon: Smartphones

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The smartphone, oh the iPhallus, a totem of gleaming chrome that pulsates with the seductive logos of connection. A symbolic object that fills the lack (castration) in the human experience. It promises to complete us, offering a sense of wholeness through connection, information, and self-expression. However, this phallus is imaginary, a mirage. A signifier, yes, that promises to fill a lack, but we must remember the inherent slipperiness of meaning. This phallic symbol may signify completion, but is it ever truly present? Is it not always deferred, forever out of reach?

A Lacanian trap, it whispers promises of the Real – of connection, knowledge, and fulfillment – but delivers only the Imaginary, a curated cage of reality filtered through the apps. Information streams forth, a rhizomatic jungle threatening to consume us in its deterritorializing flow. We, like rats in a Skinner box, are conditioned by the desiring-machines of these million apps, each a tiny node in the capitalist assemblage. The information streams – a rhizomatic jungle – threaten to consume us, yet we could argue that this very notion of a “center” (the self) being consumed is suspect. Perhaps there never was a stable center to begin with, only a play of signifiers, a constant différance.

Deleuze and Guattari talk about the rhizome, a non-hierarchical, ever-growing network. The smartphone embodies this – a web of connections, information, and apps. However, it’s a curated rhizome, controlled by corporations and algorithms. This “cage of curated reality” limits our experience, feeding us information that reinforces existing structures.

The constant notifications and app updates turn the phone into a Skinner box. Like a lab rat, we’re conditioned to crave the next dopamine hit, the next scroll, the next like. But this endless cycle leaves us with a hollow satisfaction, a sense of emptiness despite the constant stimulation.

We, the conditioned rats in this Skinnerian box, are not simply acted upon by these desiring-machines. the way meaning is constantly deferred and reshaped through interpretation. We are not just passive consumers; we actively participate in the construction of meaning within these apps.

This candy-coated slavery fits snugly in the palm, an iSlave to the machinations of desire. These narcissistic mirrors, gleaming black like the Lacanian objet petit a, offer portals to a curated chaos, an illusion of control. Everyman becomes a nomad in this digital landscape, a producer, a kingpin, even a pornographer, all at once. Yet, the fantasy crumbles. The signal flickers, a reminder of the Symbolic order’s limitations. The battery drains, mirroring the castration inherent in the Real. A phantom limb lost in the dead zone of the subway, the smartphone ceases to be an extension of the self and becomes a stark reminder of the lack.

These iSlabs, narcissistic mirrors reflecting a fragmented objet petit a, become portals to a curated chaos inherent in any system of signs. There is no ultimate control, only an endless play of meaning that can never be fully contained.

The fantasy crumbles, yes, with the flickering signal – a reminder of the limitations of the Symbolic order. But for Derrida, there is no pure Real outside of language. The “lack” you describe is itself a product of the Symbolic order, a necessary absence that allows for meaning to function.

A Million Tiny Desires and the Fragmentation of the Self:

The multitude of apps becomes a million “tiny desires” in Lacanian terms. Each app fragments us, pulling our attention in different directions. We become “kingpins” of a curated self, a producer of content, even a pornographer through selfies. But this fragmented self is a mere illusion.

The Lost Limb and the Real of the Disconnection:

The dead zone on the subway becomes a reminder of the Lacanian “Real”: the raw, unsymbolized aspect of existence that disrupts our symbolic order. The loss of signal, the dying battery, represents the inevitable disconnection, a reminder that the iPhallus is ultimately impotent.

  • The iPhallus: This is a brilliant coinage. The smartphone, like Freud’s phallus, signifies power and desire, yet ultimately lacks the ability to truly fulfill. It promises connection, but delivers a castrated reality, a curated image world.
  • Lacanian Panopticon: The phone isn’t just a Skinner box, it’s a Lacanian Panopticon. We are constantly monitored, not by a single eye, but by the algorithmic gaze, shaping our desires and experiences. Even the “curated chaos” is pre-determined by unseen forces.
  • The Real vs. the Symbolic: The information jungle devours our time, leaving a hollow satisfaction because it’s all part of the Symbolic order – language, signs, and representations. The Deleuzian nomad craves the Real, the raw experience beyond the symbolic. The smartphone, however, traps us in a simulated world.
  • Narcissus and the Mirror Stage: You perfectly capture the narcissistic aspect with the “iSlabs.” Lacan’s Mirror Stage theory posits that our sense of self is formed through identification with an image. The phone becomes a mirror reflecting a curated self, further fragmenting our identity.
  • The Desiring-Machines: Deleuze and Guattari talk about “desiring-machines” – assemblages that fuel our desires. The smartphone is a desiring-machine gone rogue, constantly producing new desires we can never truly satisfy.
  • The Signal’s Flicker and the Phantom Limb: The dead zone becomes a powerful metaphor. The loss of signal signifies the fragility of our constructed reality. It’s a reminder of the Real, the world outside the phone’s control, a world we can only access by putting the phone down.

Beyond the Cage: A Deleuzian Escape?

This Deleuzian-Lacanian analysis paints the smartphone as a double-edged sword. It offers connection and empowerment, but also traps us in a curated, symbolic reality. We are both desiring-machines, seduced by the logos, and nomads, forever seeking to escape the limitations of the system. The dead zone becomes a metaphor for the ever-present lack, the reminder that true fulfillment lies beyond the grasp of the smartphone’s seductive promises. Deleuze and Guattari also talk about lines of flight, escapes from the controlling structures. Perhaps the smartphone, despite its limitations, can still offer a line of flight. It can connect us to new ideas, communities, and ways of being. The challenge lies in using it critically, to break free from the curated cage and forge our own paths through the digital rhizome.

The smartphone, then, becomes a Panopticon. We are not simply monitored by a single, all-seeing eye, but by a multiplicity of interpretations and perspectives. The curated chaos itself is a product of this play of difference. The information jungle may leave us with a hollow satisfaction, but we would argue that this dissatisfaction is inherent in language itself. Meaning is always deferred, never fully present. The Deleuzian nomad may crave the Real, but for Derrida, the Real is always already caught up in the web of language.

The phone becomes a mirror, yes, but a fragmented one, reflecting the multiple facets of our identity. Derrida would challenge the notion of a unified self, highlighting the way our identities are constantly constructed and deconstructed through language. The smartphone is a desiring-machine, yes, but one caught up in the endless play of différance. The desires it produces are never fully formed, always open to interpretation and subversion.

The dead zone becomes a powerful metaphor, not just for the limitations of the smartphone, but for the limitations of language itself. There is always something that escapes signification, that remains outside the symbolic order. The smartphone, then, is a double-edged sword. It offers connection and empowerment, but also traps us in a web of signification. We are both active participants in the construction of meaning and forever caught in the play of différance. The challenge lies in using it critically, aware of the limitations of language and the slipperiness of meaning, to forge our own paths through this digital landscape.

Riding the Tiger of Liberalism:

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Imagine liberalism, not as a linear progression, but as a subterranean network of desiring forces. Imagine liberalism, not as a grand narrative of Western superiority, but as a twisting, subterranean rhizome. This warped root system burrows through history, finding purchase in the fertile grounds of burgeoning empires.

Western liberalism isn’t the dominant root; it’s just a particularly vigorous offshoot. Ming China, the Ottoman Empire – these were also vibrant expressions of the liberal impulse, their tendrils reaching for expansion, innovation, and the fulfillment of desires. Each, at its zenith, pulsated with a chaotic vibrancy, a tolerance for difference. Ming China, a rhizomatic network of markets and bureaucratic flows, pulsated with this libidinal energy. The Ottomans, a nomadic assemblage, surfed the wave of conquest, incorporating diverse populations under a (relatively) loose rein. This wasn’t enlightened benevolence; it was the exuberant free-play of power at its peak. Trade flourished, ideas bloomed, a multiplicity of desires found expression. This was liberalism as a deterritorializing force, carving out spaces of freedom within the rigidities of established structures.

Power, in this sense, is not a possession, but a flow – and at their zenith, these empires all rode that current.

The Mirror Stage of Decline

But beware the Real! It lurks beneath the Symbolic order of Law and Reason that underpins this liberal facade. The lack, the ever-present hole in the social fabric, is papered over with a fantasy of limitless growth. The gaze of the Other, the West in this case, fuels a paranoid competition. The Other, once tolerated or incorporated, becomes a threat. Ming China retreats into isolation. The Ottoman Sultans become suspicious of Janissaries.

But then comes the Fall, the shattering of the mirror. The once-mighty empire confronts its own limitations, its image fractured. Internally, paranoia sets in. The open borders and experimentation of the liberal phase give way to a desperate clinging to the fractured self-image. History becomes a Burroughs-esque cut-up. The liberal flourish – Ming opera troupes touring Southeast Asia, Ottoman engineers building magnificent bridges – is juxtaposed with the violence of decline: eunuchs wielding power in the Forbidden City, Janissary rebellions wracking Constantinople. The body politic itself becomes fragmented, mirroring the fractured self-image. Fear is the scalpel, carving up the once-unified social fabric. The West, too, will face its own cut-up – a kaleidoscope of social unrest, political polarization, and a desperate search for a past glory that may never have existed.

Ming Emperors, forever haunted by the specter of peasant rebellion, tighten their grip. The Ottomans, fixated on the mirage of absolute power, ossify into stagnation. The West, too, will face this mirror – its reflection distorted by fear of immigrants, economic anxieties, and a waning sense of global dominance. The word “liberal” becomes a cut-up phrase, spliced and diced by the meat grinder of history. Ming mandarins, their bellies full of fat goose and opium fumes, become grotesque parodies of freedom. Janissaries, their scimitars dripping with blood, enact a twisted performance of tolerance. The virus of control infects every system. Liberal indulgence morphs into paranoid involution.

Drone strikes become the new trade routes. Social media, a panopticon of control disguised as a marketplace of ideas. They preach freedom while their borders bristle with barbed wire. The West hasn’t transcended the cycle; it’s hurtling towards its own inevitable decline, its liberalism a grotesque parody of its former vibrancy.

The punchline? Liberalism isn’t some uniquely Western invention. It’s a phase, a power surge, that all empires experience. The key is not to mistake the temporary high for the permanent state of being. The West, drunk on its own dominance, might be in for a hangover of epic proportions. But just as new shoots emerge from the rhizome, perhaps the decline of the West will open space for new expressions of the liberal impulse – elsewhere, unforeseen.

Whispers of lines of flight, escapes from the striated order. Hints at a new Symbolic order, one that acknowledges the Real and doesn’t try to paper it over. Burroughs screams for a cut-up revolution, a radical reconfiguration of the social body. Can we dismantle the tiger of Liberalism before it throws us all? Perhaps liberalism, shorn of its Western pretensions, can become a tool for dismantling all empires, a weapon against the mirror stage’s allure. A future where deterritorialization is not the privilege of the powerful, but a force for genuine multiplicity. The question is, are we ready to tear down the façade and embrace the chaotic potential?

Probably not

Stealing Commons From the Goose

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The Flawed Script: A Goose, a Common, and the Spectral Other

The legal meat-grinder churns, a bio-mechanical Moloch. It devours the petty thief, the one who snatches the feathered signifier, the goose, from the commons – the free-floating, pre-symbolic Real. This desperate act, a twitch in the fabric of the social order, is punished with brutal finality. A public display of cause and effect, a suturing of the rent with the bloody needle of the law.

A goose, you say? A banal signifier, a phallus for the masses, easily grasped, easily digested by the Law’s maw. But the script, this social control program, this matrix we call reality, oh, it runs far deeper. Behind the scrim of ownership, lurks the Big Grab, the Enclosure. The powerful, the Lacanian Other, the Symbolic order itself, fences off the commons, the Real, the source of all meaning. They steal the very ground from which the goose, any goose, can even be conceived. This theft, this act of severing the subject from the jouissance of the Real, is the primal crime.

The petty thief, a pawn, dances to the script’s melody. He hungers for the surface symbol, the meat of the goose. But the true player, the puppeteer behind the Law, craves a different sustenance. They feed on the raw, unsymbolized energy, the repressed libido, the very life force stolen from the commons.

But the greater parasite, the one unseen, escapes the grinder’s maw. This spectral Other, a Lacanian master lurking in the shadows, has orchestrated the theft of the commons itself. They’ve fenced it in, transformed the open field of desire into a codified enclosure. The goose, once a wild element, becomes a commodity, a signifier chained to the symbolic order.

We, the divided subjects, forever yearning for the lost wholeness of the Real, are left with the scraps. We chase phantoms, the reflected image of the goose in the distorting mirror of the market. The law, a malfunctioning script, reinforces this fractured reality. It punishes the desperate symptom, the man or woman driven by lack, while the true crime – the theft of the symbolic commons – continues unaddressed.

This is the obscene theater of our existence, a Burroughs-esque cut-up of reality. We are all junkies, hooked on the signifiers dangled before us. The goose, once a source of sustenance for the collective flock, becomes a mere token in the endless exchange.

Here’s the rub, here’s the Burroughs-esque cut-up: the goose itself is a code. Its honk, a message from the Id, a chaotic squawk the Law struggles to decipher. Stealing the goose is a rebellion, a glitch in the matrix. The act disrupts the script, exposes the power grab behind the charade of ownership.

But the game’s rigged. The commons are shrinking, fenced in by legalese and barbed wire. The goose, once a wild squawker, becomes a processed patty, another empty signifier on a supermarket shelf. The revolution, if there is one, lies in hacking the script, rewriting the code. Perhaps the goose, that symbol of primal desire, can become the key, the virus that infects the system, that honks its way back to the unfettered commons, the Real, the source.

The only escape? Perhaps a radical re-writing of the script. A cut-up revolution, a dismantling of the symbolic order itself. To reclaim the commons, the wild goose of desire, we must confront the spectral Other, expose their machinations. Only then can we break free from the law’s flawed script and enter the uncharted territory of the Real. But be warned, the path is fraught with danger. The journey may lead to madness, to a dissolution of the self.

But what choice do we have? The alternative is an eternity of chasing phantoms in a fenced-in world.