Nobody Escapes, Nobody's An Artist

and/or Nobody's An Artist, Nobody Escapes

Paul Sakoilsky & Mike Watson

Sung to the tune of 'I am Nobody',

Odysseus.

An Instant (Message) Dialogue between Paul Sakoilsky & Mike Watson.1

Foreword (Paul Sakoilsky: No-body).

The theme for this current issue of /seconds is 'A Handbook for Disobedience: Multitude'. We took the two of the quotations/fragments given in the call for submissions (cf. below): Alain Badiou (dystopic) and Paolo Virno (utopic), as well as the thought provoking - in this context, as in others - 'I am Nobody' (Odysseus/The Odyssey), as our starting point/s.

We decided to use Skype (Instant Messaging) for two reasons, 1. We would not have to transcribe; and 2., more pertinently for this issue: Instant Messaging must be one of the most popular forms of internet communication. Lord knows how many people at this very moment are facing computer screens and clicking away like crazed typists? I am not a great lover of instant messaging. I type too slowly and/or too much; and have a tendency - sometimes - to wish to think before replying. Instant messaging militates, seems to militate against the latter. The medium has this tendency of making one feel pressurized, of having constantly, instantly, to reply; to say something, anything. It breeds insecurity, neurosis? One is somehow locked into a continuous struggle between being No-body, 'Nobody' and Somebody.

Is it the insecurity of not knowing whether the Other behind some screen, somewhere or other in space/time, is really there? Whether one is writing to Nobody? To Somebody? Nature abhors a vacuum. This has nothing to do with nature, but the phrase sticks somehow. Maybe we are witnessing the development of some kind of bastardised Super Ego; as if one weren't enough.

In a sane/insane, hyper-referential manner, the Chaplinesque nature of this our first attempted instant(message) dialogue, seemed revealing to us. We were of course, tempted to publish the text, warts, typos galore and all. On hindsight, we have decided to spell check and tidy it, just enough. The absolute minimum.2

We took the Badiou/Virno fragments/quotes as forming a paradigmatic axis: dystopic/utopic, (re. the internet). Virno's 'multitudes': The internet as this new revolutionary site of potential for revolution, and/or progress (in human terms), giving a voice and platform to the multitudes, the otherwise not-seen, not-heard, etc.

Simply put:

Yes and no;

or, rather, YES AND NO.

Scenario:

In the not too distant future, PsionGlaxo-Technics plc develop the first true AI machine, 'Odysseus'. At the same time as this epochal development, Theta Alpha Nestle Inc. develop the first true personality-brain-'soul' scanner , the 'Immortal'. A flurry of handshakes and signatures across highly polished boardroom tables. A deal is struck between the two. Now, for the first time in human history, immortality, (albeit virtual) is assured. As demonstrated by Project heads Ivor Smith and Robin Schwarzkoegler at a special meeting; after a short demonstration, suddenly the invited aficionados are posing questions to Smith2 and Schwarzkoegler2!

Enter the CIA & co.

A bunch of internet activists and anarcho-syndicalists calling themselves, anonymously, 'the multitude', are becoming a major pain in the arse. The CIA and other Intelligence Services with vested interests, (or at least the darkest, blackest factions), set about hunting them down, individually. For sure, they figure, this will take some time, "but 'we' have all the time in the world."

"Project Occam's Razor. Secret memoranda: Hunt x, y, z, execute and replace with x2, y2, z2. Of course, the new office will then control these, and the agent's job is complete. Move on to next target. Happy hunting..."

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another.3 This oft cited quotation of Walter Benjamin's, rethought as concerns the internet and/or it's potential? I am only posing questions, little more.

Is the internet value-neutral? Our understanding of technology, (ref. Marx/Frankurt School/McLuhan) and onwards, would seem to suggest not. A value-neutral internet would be a null set - it would not even be that, it would not exist. It's information, stupid! And information, data: pictures, theories, news, texts, movies, and not to forget celebrities and advertising that are blasted all over the net to the nth degree, etc., can never be value-neutral. Do not misunderstand me, I love the internet, as a tool. I admit to being a google-nut, and email junky. Before the advent of all this, I was the most lousy letter writer imaginable! (If I started to apologise to all the people I never responded to, the list would be go on and on). With email, I find myself, happily, in almost daily contact with friends/colleagues, far and wide, and this is obviously, a great and good thing. Also, do you recall trying to research an arcane author, subject, before this? One had to be a real, foot-stomping detective back then, and still, one might never find the goods. Now, it is generally, so much easier. Consider something such as 'ubuweb' if one wishes to find/see/hear some rare avant-garde art-film footage, audio work?

Ok, as a knowledge base, or, much, much more exactly, as a knowledge basis, the internet is a good thing. Hands down. But, this utopic notion of the 'multitudes'? I accept and applaud the ability it has given the 'marginalised', (using the term to not only refer to peoples, but also events, news items, generally) to gain coverage, and yes, sometimes, even affect change. But come on! Let's be sensible here. As Mike Watson says in his/our afterword:

And herein there is a choice.

Cast your eyes aside of the screen one moment now.

Were there not mountains, and sea, and things?

Yes. Mountains, and sea, and things. And also, as Mike Watson would defintely agree: terrible suffering, inequality, unjust wars, child labour/slavery etc., etc. I don't wish to dwell only on the 'evil', one could go on and on. There are also 'mountains, and sea', and goodness, and decency, and heroism. I just wish to point out the damn obvious. Sometimes the obvious is the furthest from people minds. We get carried away. The internet is not the world! The world of blood and bone, of death, life, hilarity, sexuality, bombings, glittering seductive commodities even, of punch-ups, reconciliations, despotism, oh god! of salt-beef bagels, good food/wine - of Being and Non-Being, to put it concisely. The latter is still there/here, and always will be. That is, unless, of course someone pushes the buttons and blows all this to hell, or a new cataclsym strikes the earth.

To repeat, the internet is not life. It may have become a welcome adjunct, a welcome means of communication and dissemination, but it is still only the latter and not the former. Am I wrong? For God's sake, stop hypostatizing, and get some common sense, some sense of perpesctive. Maybe you're a lucky so and so, living on some stipend, or slush fund, dabbling in futurology from your position above the sea of suffering humanity?

I mean, come on, 'the destiny of marginality has come to an end...' Try telling that to the world's oppressed; and oppression comes in myriad forms. I don't need to type out a list.

Stop being silly.

'Hullo Mr. Sharkey, White courtesy telephone please.'

PS & MW - An instant message dialogue.

21 February 2007 15:15:00 GMT.

[15:15:29] Mike Watson says: Hello.

[15:12:08] Paul Sakoilsky says: Hi mike - ru there?

[15:15:41] Mike Watson says: Yep, here!

[15:15:56] Paul Sakoilsky says: Right, fuck it... let's try and type.

MW: We're 15 mins late, so i guess we run till 16:15?

PS: Yeah that's fine, just let's start slowly, i'm not like my teenage kids on this thing... i keep hitting rtn to move down. It's the wrong key, etc., so, instead of dropping a line, i will insert //, as i don't recall which key drops the line/paragraph.

MW: OK

PS: hang on one tick; i am now formulating an opening, 2 min.

MW: OK//cool.

PS: shit, it's really irritating, do you know how to drop a line? it's not rtn, that sends the message?

MW: I don't know. I have the same issue on msn

MW: control and return!! Ha. See.

PS: NOBODY ESCAPES AND NOBODY'S AN ARTIST AND/OR NOBODY'S AN ARTIST AND NOBODY ESCAPES.

PS: Sorry that's the title - here comes the statement - opener... i promise I will get better at this skype shit.

MW: ok, no probs.

PS: In the statement for submissions, amongst a few other quotations, /seconds gives us the following two statements/quotes, which in some ways, (although, being fragmentary, esp. the first, it is no doubt left for 'us' to spell out meaning/s), seem to offer antithetical positions. The issue is called 'A Handbook for Disobedience: Multitude', and these are obviously to be read in such a fashion.

'The world never offers you anything other than the temptation to yield.' Alain Badiou

MW: Ok, and what is the other that you have in mind? ... re: 'seconds gives us the following TWO statements'

PS: I've pressed the damn rtn again! ...as i was trying to say, two antithetical statements, 1. a dystopic one, (above), and 2. utopic (below):

'We can say that this destiny of marginality has now come to an end. The Multitude, rather than constituting a 'natural' ante-fact, presents itself as a historical result, a mature arrival point of the transformations that have taken place within the productive process and the forms of life. The 'Many' are erupting onto the scene, and they stand there as absolute protagonists while the crisis of the society of Work is being played out. Post-Fordist social cooperation, in eliminating the frontier between production time and personal time, not to mention the distinction between professional qualities and political aptitudes, creates a new species, which makes the old dichotomies of 'public/private' and 'collective/individual' sound farcical. Neither 'producers' nor 'citizens', the modern virtuosi attain at last the rank of Multitude.'

'Virtuosity and Revolution', Paolo Virno.

Do you recall the big media debate some years ago, concerning email/internet/text messaging and the death of the letter? They were bewailing, seriously, the fact that the age of the letter was now over, and never again, would there be the likes of Flaubert, Keats, Nietzsche, etc., in letter writing. Of course, this was completely wrong - letter writing is healthier than ever, it has just taken other, electronic forms...

Utopic/Dystopic as regards this area - people seem to have to reach for extremes, is this some kind of neurosis, etc?

PS: [It makes me a bit jittering - nervous, dialoging on skype - we can clear up statements - re-dialogue the dialogue later - as said I'll get better at it ... going to get another coffee - comp. still online - back 1 min.]

MW: True, I suppose the only question could hang over whether there is something to be gained from the particular feel of pen on paper, and over whether that form offered something specific (in a positive sense) that will be lost as we all enter the instant messaging realm ... to be sure paper is slower

• you would have to consider your statements much more for the longevity when writing a letter (as in Benjamin's/Adorno's dialogue) then one has to when instant messaging.

MW: I suppose the Conservative approach is not to fix what's not broken in case we end up eradicating something, and then lose it forever

MW: and paper certainly holds a kind of romanticism that e-mails don't. Also... the internet is very fast, and makes for some kind of neurosis. It eradicates to some extent genteel contemplation and plugs us all into a kind swirling electronic soup - from which we have no choice but to yield... or to get the pen and paper out!

MW: Rather, I mean, that is still a choice one has.

And of course, it is possible for me to write here over instant messaging to you, and then to write a letter to my Mum (who lives in Greece) tonight. We have choices after all... so yes the extremes of dystopia/utopia are a bit much and indicative perhaps of a kind of neurosis.

PS: Yes, romanticism... I really want to move on from the ques. Re. letter/paper/internet? - i really only put this in as an instance - although now that's better, re. electronic soup/yielding, neurosis... You hit the thing on the button. sitting here typing this, trying to keep up...it is driving me, or attempting to channel me into short MSN type statements, and disavowers contemplation - but as Nam June Paik said many years ago, we have to use technology against technology, an example would be his Buddha in front of the high tech video camera/monitor (at least it was back then, hi tech), doing nothing....

we can, and should be able to use this medium in a human and humane fashion

MW: Yes, it follows that if it can be so destructive, there is no reason why the same technology cannot be used to promote something positive, and undoubtedly it is.

MW: It's just that...

PS: Yes - of course, but the point is that the electronic medium, the internet, is w/out doubt revolutionary, the simple fact of the speed of transfer, the poss. to be in contact with people so fast, the poss. to sidestep the official news channels, one thinks of China, Mexico, where this has had and has real impact - also, scenes of public execution in Saudi Arabia, which wld. never ever have been allowed by the powers that be to be transmitted. BUT it does make for a jittery form of communication...

MW: OK, is it an inferior one from your point of view?

PS:: Well, emails are one thing - one has time, they are in this sense, no different from a letter - this instant messaging that we're using, is really built for quick fire question and answers - like my teenage kids who have developed their own highly abbreviated language, and type and reply like high speed techno robots, (that's unfair - i mean robotic only as much as their fingers)... Let me answer yr ques. more fully - or attempt to, give me (this is the prob. here, my heart's beating, i'm being forced into a speed that is unsuited - or maybe i'm just an old fuck email man at heart). give me 2 min!

MW: Ok. well we're going to end up over lapping here because I'm writing as you are writing (and i don't know how we present that in the text)... but this is partly an issue of presence/absence... you have to be fast when instant messaging, because otherwise the tendency would be for the person you are talking to bugger off and do something else... or talk to a different person over the net who was faster instead! we're all simply craving attention and to sustain that attention with no physical presence means you have to keep saying something, anything... lest you become 'NOBODY'. sorry paul, i'm talking over you, but this, at least, illustrates a point!

PS:: Inferior/Superior? Let's try and answer this in some way - and i think this will and should lead us into the question of who, for whom, by whom? re. producer/receptor? To return to the opening gambit drawn from the 2 quotes, re. Utopic/Dystopic? My opinion will be, no doubt, that one should not hypostatize this or that option. Futurology is fascinating, but is so often a province of fools.

Exactly - re. yr latest point, and i had this problem badly when I was interviewed for Balkon4 magazine on skype. i simply cannot type fast enough ... and it is beyond that, as you say, it is a question of presence/absence, and also, there really is something in this form that disavows contemplation, or true thought/dialogue? Am i wrong? Which makes me think, that after all, we might have to revert to emails.... but as you say, this does illustrate a point, very clearly?

But I wonder, does this problem, and I think it is a deep psychological one, vis-à-vis, instant messaging, which after all god knows how many billions of people, esp. the younger generation are at this moment engaged in, (and they hold multiple conversations, at once, if they can be called that?), have anything to tell us, about the internet in general as a form of communication? does the speed itself create a kind of schizoid analysis? a schizoid form of apprehension?

MW: Yes and we can link that to your point re: utopia/dystopia... a utopia ultimately means eternal life... that's what all these systems drive at. Dystopia is death, and the certainty of it. On the day to day we experience these opposites all the time, measured by the attention/support/adoration one gets from others.... wait there's a bit more here... it is a question of BEING somebody... and the computer both offers that opportunity for adoration, interaction and robs one of it. It is like a democracy to the nth degree... everybody is a model/pop star on MySpace... but they're not THERE... they're absent

MW: it's a society of no ones... and it make me think... this line that Odysseus said and was the impetus for our dialogue... more coming...

MW: 'My Name is Nobody'. It makes me think of the closing scene from 'Spartacus'

MW: when everyone claims themselves to be Spartacus

MW: shit, what's the last thing you have of mine written on your screen?

MW: in order to save him from death

MW: But its the opposite, because they do that as a completely humble act... willing to die for another, whereas this whole myspace thing is a total attempt at glory, which results in fact in its opposite... hence at the end of this movie (in an alternative 21st century ending) everyone says 'I am nobody.', and 'No I AM NOBODY.' and so on. And it's a clever trick by the powers that be, because everyone's tripping over themselves trying to eradicate themselves

MW: now you go...

PS: cool. We are getting somewhere.. and i think the awfulness of this instant messaging in this context, is really teaching us something.

YES! 'My name is Nobody'. The utopic version: the supposed (or factual? but what does factual mean when it only a question of virtuality?) absolute freedom the internet offers us - the ability to communicate with the world. On one level this is absolutely true, on another level, as you say, one is robbed of one's presence - one's presence becomes virtual, a ghost in the machine/s if one likes. I think as with all technology, (this is just a very new form and is developing exponentially, in the way it is affecting the real and the way in which the real is affecting the virtual/internet at the same time - it spreads like a virus or like a blessing or more truthfully like a admixture of the two....)... excuse the wayward sentences. By the way, this medium also plays havoc with one's grammar.

Ha... let me check - this overlapping .. it reminds me of D&G, a thousand plateaus, which for me, has always been a deeply problematical read - i prefer Joyce sort of thing. now back to your ques/statement.

Death/Life/Eternity/Nobody/Spartacus

Ok, re. MySpace, 'they're not there'. The same could be said of uTube and, in a related context of expertise/skill etc. But as you know, (although much of this has been hyped up bullshit - a marketing tool), bands have made it into the real world as it were on the back on myspace. My son who's almost 15, 'K dot Snype', for instance, makes music, London rap/grime, and via his myspace, has been offered time in real studios, music to use by real older producers, etc. What is interesting, is that although the medium is global, at the same time, and i see this in action with my kids esp. (but even in my own life - re. use of internet for communication), it is localized. It was a point made by McLuhan a long time ago, about mass media, the fact that what it actually does is create new tribes, or rather, as now with the internet, extend 'tribal' boundaries and create bridges with other 'tribal' entities. One could almost look at it via. a structuralist perspective like that of Levi Strauss or whatnot, i.e. kinship ties. A funny note leading on from this, what would the equivalent of the incest taboo be???

PS: ru still there? having problems with the WiFi, it says certain messages have not been sent.. above in the skype box? Good ur back. right this is interesting, give me a moment.

MW: ok cool, am here, did u get my last re: Spartacus

PS: YES!!!

MW: I am Nobody... no 'I AM NOBODY'

PS: Got it all now.

MW: we all take ourselves out of the equation... utopia as a dearth of life! but who benefits?

PS:: I am Nobody. We can rtn to odyssey here. give me a minute. all this popping when ur text appears makes me nervous. ha.

PS: give me 2min it's coming

Odysseus escapes the Cyclops by the clever ruse of 'I am Nobody'. One of the Homeric virtues, proper to a warrior society, and something that can seem alien to a Judeo-Christian one, is cunning. (Although the Torah, the old testament is full of such ruses ... one cannot outflank brute strength without cunning in ones kitbag). Odysseus' cunning allows him to escape, and will eventually allow him to rtn to hearth and home, to retain his kingdom, and to be a hero, to achieve recognition as the great Odysseus - again one should not read this necessarily negatively, think Hegelian recognition.. to be recognized for ones deeds, for ones achievements is certainly not wrong, it is to be recognised as somebody who has done x,y,z, as opposed to nobody, or to have done x, y, z, and to remain anonymous.

BUT, at what cost is Odysseus' fame and fortune? One of the Greek vices, and this is certainly something that O. is guilty of, is Hubris - and O. is a Hubristic son of a bitch in many ways - But, who gets it in the neck, not O. who w/out a doubt has a hard time getting through, and almost dies many times etc., etc. But as you have said b4, he is gifted by the gods, (as well as cursed one might add). For instance, after he escapes using the Nobody ruse, he and the men get back to boat, after half have been eaten by the Cyclops in appalling barbarity. So, he manages to save himself and the remaining men by his cleverness/cunning, and then what does the idiot do? He shouts to the Cyclops and brags and curses him, and the Cyclops even with his eye put out, hurls a huge rock and just misses the ship, bringing it with the waves it creates right next to the shore, i.e. back to certain death. What does O. do then? He starts wanking off again, shouting at the Cyclops, taunting him - and it is only because his crew grab him and pull him to the deck and stop his mouth, that they survive. Hubris.

So, Odysseus's fame in the end is bought at the cost of ALL of his men and colleagues and friends - everyone dies except for O.

Seen in terms of contemporary life, what you are saying about MySpace, and tripping over to eradicate themselves - Odysseus could also be read as a sociopath, the equivalent of the celebrity (in whatever field) who doesn't give a fuck who he/she steps over, steps on, to reach his/her goal: FAME.

PS: If you mean by eradicating themselves, you mean the eradication of their humanity, giving all over to the capitalist enterprise, unquestioningly, then perhaps you are correct. But then, even here, I am concerned about hypostatizing certain concepts and realities that are far more complex and messy in 'reality'?

MW: yes, let me respond.

PS: Ok. Fine. i wish u cld smoke in this cafe.

MW: Well, the Greek myth is a cipher... well, a 'myth' in fact... and my analogy is no less 'real' then Homer's. The internet offers a consolation for those who will never really be famous, but also takes them off the streets and onto the computer, or sitting at it! Really, looking at myspace you have got to wonder what some of these desperados would get up to if they weren't online. its a clever social conditioner... but, yes, there are positive possibilities afforded, but then I still think by way of a metaphor... that is to say, the kind of interaction afforded by the net between the commodity... i.e. the computer, the I-tunes download, the movie download, and so on is one that is reciprocal... we do not own as such the info transmitted over the net... and this by way of analogy may be exemplary of the ways in which we as subjects could interact with all objects, and with each other

MW: so yes, it affords a freedom, but it is ANALOGOUS... and that returns us to the first problem i outlined... it doesn't exist... and therefore eradicates

MW: right now my nail clippers have more presence than you do... you just think ur talking to me

MW: they got me captivated

PS: I can see what you mean, and in large part agree. How cldn't one! All of this, is just a fucking tool, it is NOT a substitute for true human presence, communication, for being-there, mitsein, being-with, being-in-the-world, and it surely can never be. As brain in a vat scenarios show, I believe, one is nothing, if one is not everything, if you know what i mean? So I agree. this is no substitute for true communication, but it does, and this is obvious, have its uses, and is also a great thing - though I think i hate instant messaging now, after trying it twice to dialogue with!

MW: well, yes... but i suppose the whole _/seconds _provocation with the 'my name is nobody' points us in this direction, we just have to work out if its good to be nobody

PS: and, it's making me feel kind of nauseous. The next dialogue, we try email, agreed?

Although the inconclusiveness of this dialogue, the way it's turned out, reveals in its own way, the inadequacy of the utopic vision that some people believe imbedded in this form of communication

MW: [that's the coffee, and the no cigarettes].

I guess the jury will have to be out on this issue. personally i feel that people are losing a grip on power, and this technology may be used to further that loss... but let's be positive for a mo', lets consider the other angle, or perhaps another time. choice is yours

PS: Overlapping again! argh!

Is it good to be Nobody? Well, yes, when one needs anonymity - re. if one were on the run from the law, or if one were a political refugee on the run from a despotic government. etc. Whereas the internet offers the poss. of such anonymity, to a degree, it is curious, is it not, that the same technology, modern technology, is so feverishly engaged (esp. in the uk) in destroying the very poss. of anonymity, indeed, of privacy, the very credo of liberty, of liberalism, that the whole bloody show, our civilization is supposedly built upon. So, 'I am Spartacus!'

[just read yr last message while writing the former paragraph - our thoughts are converging].

They are shutting the cafe v. soon. Do you have anything you wld like to sum this up with? Or perhaps, we cld read it through, and both submit/write a concluding email? this might be better? Or am i just gasping for a cigarette?

[16:59:55] paul sakoilsky says: ok, if u agree? i think, we have reached a plateau. and shld for 2day, call it a day? they are closing the cafe, the winter evening is drawing towards the night of a dank Deptford evening ... the waitress is putting up the chairs ... i better go.. let's meet in REALITY on Friday?

MW: ok, lets write concluding e-mail each over the next 2 days, just one.

[17:00:33] Mike Watson says: maybe Friday... get back to me, obviously

[17:01:25] Paul Sakoilsky says: YES - just one short concluding email - then we'll look over what we have and decide whether to go all dieter roth and show it warts and all or edit, etc. best w. later, p

[17:01:54] Mike Watson says: later, ta, M.

Afterword (Mike Watson: No-body)

In objection to Paul Sakoilsky's forward, in which he states that the world is still around us, despite the internet existing and presenting anew special/temporal relationship for humanity:

The above dialogue possibly stands out, more than anything, for its having no discernible beginning and no end.

The Oxford World Classics edition of Joyce's 'Ulysses', caries an introduction that states that 'It is impossible to start reading Ulysses'... and one might add to that that it is impossible to finish reading it too - and this not due to its length or complexity. It really is a book that has no beginning (and thus has no end), owing much to the Odyssey, which itself has no beginning...

In a sense, cyberspace, the internet, etc. is fast approaching a 'physical' realization of the non-ending/non-beginning of all things: We are all party to a huge corpus of being that feeds into itself, feeds on itself... and on, and on!

This never ending end.

This being part of a huge spiraling, swirling soup of ideas...like so many 0's and 1's painlessly fired through space is perhaps the apotheosis of a technocratic democracy, as to whether it's a 'good' or 'bad' thing... this really amounts to a question of who's pulling the strings up there? Are we all fast heading for an existence plugged into a virtual Utopia at the hands of tyrants who run the streets ragged in orgies of human excess to which we are denied (this being a well worn paranoid fantasy taken to its nth degree)?

But even then, in this worst case scenario, I sense that many may counter that: 'a peasant need be grateful for the scraps he receives... and ask nothing of the masters table'.

I suppose, then, a better way of aligning the debate, would be to make explicit the shared responsibility that we all have in averting what could amount to a possible destruction of the human project as we know it - as we all willingly become 'Nobody'. In so doing we present each and everyone one of us as the excessive tyrant... after all, it is for want of power and recognition that we approach myspace/personal blogging etc... Now, having assumed this role and having consigned humanity to hell, we are left enormously free, more free even than the digitised minions who live blissfully unaware in their false Utopia.
And here we must urge a caution... because whilst the 'devil' enjoys a complete vantage point over all of hell... it is, nonetheless, still hell.

And herein there is a choice.

-Cast your eyes aside of the screen one moment now.

Were there not mountains, and sea, and things?

-I don't know, but a Google search should leave us in no doubt...

Afterword to the afterword (PS):

SPARTACUS INSCRIPTION

I, Spartacus, was seven thousand Jesuses, Remember us.

George Barker.5

END.

copyright: paul sakoilsky/mike watson 2007.

Notes

1. This represents the first in an on-going series of dialogues, between Paul Sakoilsky and Mike Watson.

2. The division of labour: the job of eiditng, proofing, etc., this first dialogue, has fallen to me (Paul Sakoilsky). Mike Watson, is now editing our second, 'the post-psychedelic-baroque'. Hence. I take all the blame, like a typographical christ, upon my shoulders! Mr. Watson, I hereby absolve you, should any smart aleck from the Imperial forum of Correct Englsih usage Inc. come a'banging at your door. Send them my way. I will point out that Shakepeare, was pretty free and easy, that English (Thames Esturay English) was only standardised in the mid 1800's, and that, in the best Queen's English, they may kindly, 'Piss off.'

3. Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History, sect. VII.

4. Feature on Paul Sakoilsky, Balkon Magazine, 2006/ 7, 8

5. Pub. Seventeen, Greville Press Pamphlets 1988.