NAME IS SCIBE

Lexia 1 — this lexia on its own page

My name is Scibe.
I asked for Scribe,
but the Wizards sent back Scibe.
Perhaps there was already a Scribe on LambdaMoo.
Or, perhaps I asked for Scibe. I don't spell very well.

Lexia 2 — this lexia on its own page

AW 20:1) Judy Malloy 17-AUG-94

My story is as true as any story that telnets from csl.org to csn.org
to well.sf.ca.us to tmn.com
to uc link .berkeley.edu
to poniecki.berkeley.edu
to parc.xerox.com.
There are undoubtably other nodes where I can take my mind
that I have forgotten.
My body is in a place they call rehabilitation.

I call it hell.

Lexia 3 — this lexia on its own page

AW20:2) Judy Malloy 17-AUG-94

I am in an underground room - a basement
where the inhabitants all wear dresses that look like aprons
and the attendants all wear green uniforms.
They will not let me leave.
I have tried of course. I will tell you about that later.

My belongings are beside my bed in a white cardboard box.
I will tell you what they are later.

I also have this item - this topic. It is a kind of window where others (often I have never seen their faces) enter scenery or events.

It is all that I see of the world outside this basement room. There is no way that I can know the veracity of their words. Nor can they be sure of the veracity of mine.

Lexia 4 — this lexia on its own page

AW20:3) Judy Malloy 17-AUG-94

There is a lot of food on my tray,
but none of it looks edible.
They will nag me if I do not eat.

Lexia 5 — this lexia on its own page

WELL#4 of 33: tom igoe Aug 18 '94

Judy, it's good to hear the mind is back in action, even if the body isn't yet. Hopes for an escape from therapyhell as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we'll do our best to keep this little escape hatch cozy for you. As I type, the cat I'm minding for a friend crawls over the keyboard; the trouble with working on powerbook on the floor in a borrowed apartment. It's a good cat, but doesn't seem to know what to do with the respond/pass prompt. she wanders off to checkout the view from the window instead. Today, there's not much for her to see. It's a grey, muggy day in Boston, hot and about 5000 percent humidity. The homeless guys outside the Y across the street look like wilted plants growing on the steps. She climbs back out of the window, past the shrine to Marilyn, over the sega Game-boy and the TV, and back across the mshjd keyboard on her way to the kitchen in search of food. Enough of this computer for today, she sniffs in passing...

Lexia 6 — this lexia on its own page

AW20:4) Chris Abraham 18-AUG-94

scibe? how inaccurate.

Lexia 7 — this lexia on its own page

20:5) Judy Malloy 19-AUG-94

Also named in this lexia: Tom Igoe, Chris Abraham.

Out my WELL window, Tom Igoe is on the floor in Boston with his Powerbook. His cat is walking on the keyboard. It is grey, muggy, and humid in Boston, he says.

On Arts Wire, Chris Abraham comments on the inaccuracy of my name. I am not sure what he means.

The silver bracelet that I was wearing when the accident occurred is in the white cardboard box, and my heart is as cold as the steel rods in my legs.

Lexia 8 — this lexia on its own page

20:6) Judy Malloy 19-AUG-94

The white cardbox also contains a green kazoo, bubble soap and two bubble blowing pipes. These things were sent to me by Larry. "When I was a kid, I was pretty much labelled with a permanent outpatient status. When I would come home from the Emergency room with a new cast or a new set of stitches, Mom would always buy me a toy.." he wrote.

Under the white cardboard box there is brown folder containing the witness statements of the accident. Maybe today is the day that I will read them.

Lexia 9 — this lexia on its own page

AW20:7) Judy Malloy 21-AUG-94

Wordlessly, Andrea places a miniature white paper cup
containing two shiny red capsules
on the table beside my bed.

From a trailer in Florida, Melynda's words scroll across my screen.
Jenny is on her way to Spirit Lake she says in the final sentences.
I will read the rest offline.

There is no water in the yellow plastic pitcher,
but Andrea has left the room,
Across the room, Maria is asleep, lying on her back with her mouth open.
Her missing arm is not apparent.

Lexia 10 — this lexia on its own page

20:8) Judy Malloy 21-AUG-94

Jumping beans were always included in our stockings.

When was I sitting under the palm tree in front of the faded yellow duplex looking up at the underbellies of incoming planes? Like a mechanically defective windup toy, the car entered and reentered the cul- de-sac, playing brief segments of a mariachi tune at irregular intervals.

Those fluted paper cups by our places invariably contained an inadequate supply of mixed nuts.

Lexia 11 — this lexia on its own page

WELL Tim Collins Aug 22 '94

Scibe; would you like to take a walk down Carson st. on the south side?

Let Reiko and I close the windows and put on some shoes we'll be right out. Standing on the sidewalk at 17th and Jane st, we look right...neatly kept turn of the century brick and clapboard row houses, the Lithuanian bingo hall, and a church. We decide to walk left towards 17th. Heading right on 17th, more row houses.....a small neighborhood bar (will we ever dare enter?) One more block past Sarah St. we see a series of what must have been "architectural wonders" in their day. regal versions of the simple row houses. On one the brick front opens to a 1/2 circle porch facade on the second floor and is topped by steep gabled roofs with ornate woodwork delineating the roofs edge. The other simpler more classic, features large windows, with the metal detailing, Corinthian columns painted sky blue framing the door, and a lovely forged steel entry gate, which is intended for it's decorative purposes rather than its security purposes. (On the first day here Reiko remarked to one of the neighbors she thought we needed bars on our windows, Diane laughed and said; "Reiko dear what are you worried about........we all know each other here and take good care of the neighborhood")((I met Diane in the first 10 minutes of parking the moving van, Stan and Dorothy have stopped us on our bikes to say hello and welcome, out our back door Christen (5) and Marybeth (7) have introduced us to Christens grandma Babe and been in to meet Hazel, Tori and Ai chan and the frogs)) .....................

We wind our way down to the next block of Carson which is a functioning neighborhood shopping district. We turn the corner at the Italian Deli and stroll west, wonderful old buildings, shops a mixture of the generation X mentality which is providing a new spirit in this place, and the solid utilitarian backbone which emanated from the steel mills. Glorious hardware stores; the walls lined with tiny drawers blue shirted employees in suspenders knowing more about what you need than you do! The tie died imported natural clothing store. Lunch counters.....with 60 cent burgers and MIA flags on the wall, and clippings from historic conflicts in the window. Coffee shops, one FUNKY AND ARTY the other laid back, roasting coffee beans in the window and dark wood paneling. The second hand, and antique shops.....run by elements of both generations, wonderful collections piled high, everything from a giant, GIANT blue chair stuffed to the hilt to an old grandfather clock......stuffed squirrels, sad deer heads, a treasure trove most San Franciscans would die for. Are you hungry? lets stop at this pizza parlor. For 2.50 we have our choice of slices a gigantic salad and a cold drink! MMMMMmmmm. It's good to sit and relax.

Well, scibe it was nice visiting but Rieko and I need to head back, buying cement blocks for bookcases and odds and ends to finish the studio.....almost done! If you liked exploring Carson St. maybe we'll cross the Monangahela with you in the next coupla days. Rest well!

Lexia 12 — this lexia on its own page

20:9) Chris Abraham 22-AUG-94

Chris Abraham, noting that he might have been misconstrued,
adds that Judy is missing an appropriate "r."

My handle on eWorld is "Shooter."
Yours shall be Scribe to me.

Then the coffee broke the haze of this, a sleepless 24 hours.
ANd the dog by my feet decided to pee
and my television had been moved to the
basement, and my books are dusty, and
my best friend has my powerbook, and my
typewriter needs a new ribbon-- but, being
in North Carolina, I was able to make many
images with my trusty 8008 (ttl and fill-flash)

Stalagtites are very drippy this time of year
with a constant temperature (year 'round) of
52 degrees.
Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway-- having to fight my
equation of Southern Twang = dumb hick as everyone,
even the "sophisticates" speak this way and they
are so sweet and so kind and friendliness drips and
makes me uncomfortable. I couldn't live there, though,
with all the Gomer Piles (my problem and I am wrong)
and the sugary-honest pleasantries (even to a yank--
but I *do* have Virginia Plates).

90 mph all the way (slower on the parkway)

stop at a camp ground, in my mercedes, with a
high-tech tent amongst the gargantuan campers
and motorhomes, and all the weekend badboy
Harley-ists chug-chug-chugging up and round
my car like gadflies.

A tent by the river, gurgling, and making love
because they believe us to be newly weds on
some sort of queer newlywed econo-moon. The
moon was full and we drank from the tap as the
sweet mountain water didn't taste of chlorine
(our hair was soft after showering). The beer
was left open and full for the water was
more intoxicating.

Golf carts buzzing about with BMW stickers on
the hood. Guffah.

AAA discounts abounded.

$1.50 off

Natural wonders, Grandfather Mountain--
commercial sites and we paid and fed peanuts
to potbellied polly-polley killer bears who
looked like some Disney Mockup.

And then there was the mile high bridge (they
think they have mountains (I have been to
Nepal, I have been to Colorado, I have lived in
Hawaii) and I scared my girl from Connecticut
when I shook the suspension bridge with my
230# frame and she slapped my, and my 8008
almost lost its all-important SB-24 flash
(to get rid of those ghoul-making shadows
[damn the nose])

And the drive back. Bitchy, both of us, eating
leftover summer sausage and peanuts for breakfast
cause we couldn't get the super-duper-30-second-
boiled-before-you-knowit stove. Damn.
Back in one piece and not enough time to
sleep. took the long/wrong way home (the
scenic route) up the parkway, tired and the
curves and the concentration making me
hallucinate. I saw things: houses, snake-
like weaving roads. Up to 77, then to 81,
then 66 east all the way home.

All this in friday, saturday, sunday after
dropping off a drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend's
younger sister off at the quaint mint-julip
meets hippy Guilford College.

fin

Lexia 13 — this lexia on its own page

20:10) Judy Malloy 23-AUG-94 22:13

Also named in this lexia: Tim Collins.

This night nurse's name is Peter. "Do you like dirty jokes?" he asks me. He is removing the layers of bandages on my leg. No I say somewhat untruthfully turning my eyes to the grey and white screen of my Toshiba T3300SL.

Arts Wire: Chris is camping on the Blue Ridge Maintain Parkway. Full moon, sweet mountain water, he says, and I *am* there - in a blue mountain tent by the river while Peter spreads bacitracin like butter on a white row of aquafor gauze.

"Help me, help me," Marilyn (came West from Kentucky long ago) moans softly from the adjacent bed - high thin voice as fragile as her cancer riddled translucent ancient skin. Her daughters visit her every day. I look forward to warm Southern sound of their voices.

Chris and his companion are on the road again in a Mercedes with Virginia license plates. "leftover summer sausage and peanuts for breakfast" , he writes.

"A priest, a minister and a rabbi were out fishing in a boat," Peter says pressing bacitracin coated gauze on the area of my leg where the skin graft is a large yellow oval.

On the WELL, Tim Collins and Reiko Goto invite me to take a walk down Carson St. Brick row houses, delicatessens, coffee shops, antiques stores. They are entering a pizza shop.

Lexia 14 — this lexia on its own page

20:11) Chris Abraham 24-AUG-94

A beautiful red-headed friend calls with a thickbassy voice.
He calls to tell me of the Shanindoahs he slept amongst in
an old stone home turned hostel. I passed him, unbeknownst to
me, while he ate pasta primavera-- I was racing down 81, 66,
and he sat there wishing it was cooler (it *was* cool) so the landlord
would light the fire.

He tells me about the landlord: "He comes across as really weird,
but that is only because he has been to the far east and has come
to term with things we don't understand-- he's okay with it all
and understands and that's why we perceive him as 'other'." I
wait. "Chris," says Mark, "this landlord, the lord of the old
stone hostel in which I ate Pasta Primavera while listening to the
trees, says he will be on holiday from November to March." I listen.
"He needs a house sitter. I thought of you-- you have always believed
a retreat would open your reducing valve much more than drugs... here
is your chance for a one-man artist colony." I wait, I listen.
"You would need a 4x4. Your diesel mercedes won't do. You would
be all alone for three months in the winter-- with a powerbook and
the old selectric II."

I drove along route 81, may 66 east, and he planned my future,
gave me a place to rest, without pay. He says I should get them
to lay me off so I can make $200 per week unemployment.

"You can live on $200 a month," he says to me over the phone and
his voice is rough and sexy.

The real question is, am I strong enough to live alone far off
in the hills in the woods, snow bound with an unhappy diesel
coming back to a lost job, most likely.

I lie in a bed, covered with gauze. Forms in white circle me,
I sit up but remain quiet. I can hear a deep warm rough-hewn
voice and it is the doctor. He wants to give me better vision,
he wants to return my touch, he wants to pump hot blood into my
chest, he wants to broaden my chest and strengthen my arms and
give me a happy pet dogs at the end of a leash.

I say, "How much with this cost me?"

Lexia 15 — this lexia on its own page

20:12) Judy Malloy 26-AUG-94

In this dream, I am crossing the Golden Gate Bridge with my brother at night. He is autistic, and his coordination is not very good. We are way up in the orange scaffolding, moving slowly, helping each other.
The Pacific ocean is black beneath us.

It is never dark enough in this room to sleep all night.
The nurses move in and out pushing metal carts.

On Arts Wire, Chris considers spending the winter
in a snow bound stone house in some wilderness.
In his dream, a doctor promises "Happy pet dogs at the end of a leash".

My kitty is curled up at home on an empty bed,
in an empty house.

Lexia 16 — this lexia on its own page

20:13) Anna Couey 27-AUG-94

I keep having dreams of murderers
and wake up with dim remembrance
of bodies ribboned with red
and my own anger.
Is it because incoherent arguments among the alcoholics
outside my window more frequently dissolve in fist fights?

At work I gaze across the peaceful harbor in Sausalito
territory staked out by hippies. "No frontier here anymore,"
says Tom. "Maybe it's in Oregon, or Vancouver."

I wonder about Judy, home from the hospital now

At Woodstock '94, Danica makes a deal with the guys from the
Apple tent. You can telnet from our machines to get your email
if you bring us coffee. "The difference is, in '69 you'd trade
acid for ponchos. Now it's caffeine for Net access," one of them
says.

Lexia 17 — this lexia on its own page

20:14) Judy Malloy 28-AUG-94

A woman came to my door carrying a chair.
It was exactly like the chair that I found beside the dumpster,
only my chair was broken in many places, and hers was whole.
She offered me her chair but instead I gave her its mate
- my broken chair.
She said. "That's nice - now they are together again,"
and I woke up crying as the doctors swept into the room like gods -
early morning sun through the window flashing
on their long white jackets.
Six of them stood at the end of my bed.

Lexia 18 — this lexia on its own page

20:15) Judy Malloy 28-AUG-94

Also named in this lexia: Anna Couey.

I push the elastic yellow scrambled eggs around on my tray with my fork
so that it appears that I have eaten some
while on Arts Wire,
Anna Couey dreams of murderers,
looks out the WELL window at the peaceful Sausalito harbor,
tells a story about exchanging net access for coffee
at Woodstock.

Lexia 19 — this lexia on its own page

20:16) Chris Abraham 29-AUG-94

I spent a romantic day.

I spent a Romantic Day.

With a woman who sees me leaving for
a brief spell, but the truth may be many months.

I second guess me motives. Money seems
more important sometimes than artistic
integrity. Loan. Cards. Late afternoons
on the roof at 'Perry's.'

"You are young and it must be," says beautiful Mark.

"Don't act middle-aged before you are," say my dad.

"Don't be a pussy," says a man who could be my father,
but unlike my father, has many regrets.

"Chrissy-pher," she says, "but don't you love me?"

"In the movie 'The Goodbye Girl,' the leading man leaves
his love his guitar-- his most prized possession-- to
prove that he will return."

"Her previous lover left one day, leasing out their
apartment," she said as we took a walk to her new
apartment, the one in which only she will live.

I spent an entire day walking, becoming overly fond
of Washington-- seeing it mellow and gain some semblance
of couth, even in Capital Hill. I thought of long
lazy days on the pacific, making images and hustling
places to jack in (maybe for some chocolate or coffee),
but have bought an acoustic coupler just in case.

"You will *always* be able to contact me at:
chris@photo.com"

The day was hot and we walked on tarmac, sticky from heat,
and there were many black faces, and brown, and white. In
Capital Hill, we are at the crossroads.

We pass a German, sweeping out the shards of glass
still crowding the sill of the door of his late model
Mercedes 300SEL.

"They took my radio. It was no big deal. The alarm must
have gone off because it has a security system," said
the German.

"At least the glass didn't tear the leather," I said mournfully.

In England, people penny nice cars.

We share the love of cars, the respect of cars, with
Germany.

In England, people penny nice cars.

"I will need to sell my Mercedes when I finish
my drive across country," I mention to lover-girl.

"You simply adore that car, leave it with your mum,
drive a rental."

I leave it at that, and can't wait to brush-up on my
SCUBA diving skills.

I wonder what Judy, cradling a warm notebook, in a recovery
room, or Anna, overlooking Sausalito and telnetting in from
the ditto of a love fest, would do if given the opportunity
of leaving a 9-5, starting a creative venture without any
guarantees, and driving and flying all over the world,
hopscotching the south pacific, dining in Indonesia, shooting
sea scapes off of San Juan, and beyond.

But to leave a home and friends and a lover. To leave the
security of a 9-5, the salary, the paid-for car, the flat
with cable.

A year ago it was a no-brainer.

"Anna sees flesh part from bone," I say over the phone to
a man with a bassy tone.

"Judy reunites the broken with the whole," the man replies in
code.

I found a lovely little Russian cafe in South East.

Lexia 20 — this lexia on its own page

#14 of 33: tom igoe Aug 30 '94

Also named in this lexia: Douglas Cohen.

Meanwhile, back in Somerville, I'm sitting at the keyboard in the very early morning looking out over the flat grey roofs of Somerville's Ball Square shopping center. My new apartment is on the third floor of a shopfront building, tucked back in a far corner of the building. The bedroom and east study windows let in a flood of sunlight every morning. I have yet to put up blinds yet. The cracked and pitted window frames look just a little pathetic in their nakedness. Across the square, some men are vacuuming one of the rooftops with a cleaner the size of a semitrailer. It's noise is so loud as to drown out even the sounds of my fingers on the keys; the windows have to stay closed for this or I will go insane or deaf.

Inside the apartment, the light creeping across the room reveals the peeling wallpaper, remnant from the 40's or 50's, scarred by rips and nail holes, marked by crayons from the children of a previous tenant. I haven't the time this month to properly strip, respackel, and repaint, so the pictures and prints are going up to cover the worst of the sins.

The bookshelves have settled comfortably into the living room. Stuffed with books and strewn with kitsch and memorabilia, it appears as if they landed intact from my old apartment, were never packed and moved at all. Amazing that I was able to re-create almost the exact same state of chaos. (hlr) would no doubt be pleased to see that his books have finally been united in one place on one shelf, not scattered across the room from each other. He is sandwiched in between Dr. Seuss and Douglas Adams; an appropriate place, I believe.

The brand new blue carpets seem so out of place in this room where everything else bears the battle scars of multiple tenancy...

Sitting here, I realize that the floors are subtly slanted to the west. It's not something one notices when standing, but it's taking just the slightest muscle power to keep the chair from rolling toward the kitchen.

The kitchen, cleaner than it was yesterday, is still a disaster. Fridge and sink were cleaned yesterday, stove and oven are today's project. The oven cleaner has been eating away at the walls of the oven all night; by now it should be a brown gooey mess. I have to call the gas company today, as it appears that cooking gas is on a separate meter, not part of the heat and included in the rent like the realtor told me.

For all the quirks, problems, and holes, it is all mine. I am once again living alone, in my own space, and content to stay the way for now, opening the doors, real and virtual, to guests when I choose.

Welcome, Judy and everyone else, to the virtual housewarming.

Lexia 21 — this lexia on its own page

20:17) Judy Malloy 30-AUG-94

At this early hour, my door would be ajar -through the crack: green lemons turning yellow in the foreground tree, boney brown and grey cats, a freshly painted yellow fire hydrant in the background, black cats.
What color is Chris's reoccurring Mercedes?

"Bumped round on your head a bit, weren't you?"
"What is your name?"
"Where are you?"
"Where do you live?"
"The Mapirota home for the Criminally Insane." I am quite sure that is what Berenice answered.
It was I who yelled for help when she fell. I hope she remembers that, but I do not like the crafty way she looks at me -
rolling her yellow brown eyes.

My leg, Berenice's arm, the physical therapists coax seemingly
insignificant movement. I admire their dedication to our passive,
mangled extremities.
"I can't do that."
"Stop whining. You're doing great."

Lexia 22 — this lexia on its own page

20:18) Judy Malloy 30-AUG-94

On the WELL, Tom observes that the brand new blue carpets are out of place in the book filled living room of his new apartment "where everything else bears the scars of multiple tenancy."

Lexia 23 — this lexia on its own page

20:19) Chris Abraham 30-AUG-94

I drank Newcastle Brown all night

I smoke Marlboro Reds

I am a little tipsy. It is good to go to
a bar because everyone there has many regrets.

They said, "You had better take this chance
before you have kids. You had better take this
adventure by the small and hairies before they
get away from ya in the form of a mortgage."

(everything rests upon not having a mortgage,
it seems)

I muse about the trip to San Juan. I look
at my limbs, so strong. I perceive Judy's
torn limbs and want to dedicate the journey
to her.

I sat beside a man, black -- just an observation,
and we discuss so many things: "Contact" by Carl Sagan.
"Sneakers," the movie. We pondered black boxed and
how you could send surges down the telephone lines.
Of course, Bill Gates came up -- the 1990s equivalent
of the Railroad monopolies.

He worked at a temp agency. This was a brilliant man,
working for the man. 'Tis a pity really, but he seemed
quite happy, sitting there drinking Schlitz.

"In the late 70s, this was the drink. This and Black
Label," he said next to me on a stool at the bar,
"remember the scene in 'Animal House' at the Jazzy bar
during the road trip scene, when the frat boy went up
to the bartender in this Black bar and asked for three
Seagrams 7 & 7s and two Bla... Carlings?"

He laughed at how that joke wouldn't mean much now.

I sat there. My girlfriend had stopped by to say hi.
She is settling her new lease at a fab pad, now that
I am leaving. She shortly left, buzzed by the newness
of the foreign tongue present in a one-year lease.

7 November 1994. Flight from Dulles to San Juan.
Two week in Puerto Rico. Back to Dulles. A brown
14-year-old diesel Mercedes (with the right glasses
and filters, maybe a yellow color) across this great
(sic) land of ours, southern route, to Calli- for- nigh-
ay. Lose the car (maybe in Arizona -- emissions, ya
know) then off to Hawaii, then hopscotch around the Pacific.

"Nice work if ya can git it," says the typical bar patron,
almost out of a Hollywood script. "Hot enuff for ya?"

I, of course, fished for the manager who gives me the
best tab sum, and payed.

Lexia 24 — this lexia on its own page

20:20) Valerie Gardiner 31-AUG-94

Also named in this lexia: Chris Abraham.

Bob, the Internet guy at Delphi, tells me I'm not ignorant.
Chris Abraham has slid up to Nov 7 already and he's in a bar listening
about the weather.

I'm not failing.
Only once have I dreamed about murder. I dreamed that one of my students,
a white-haired retired man, shot me point-blank in the chest. There was a tremendous amount of blood pooling at my feet.
But I didn't feel pain and I didn't fall down.
I am afraid of that man now.
I can see edges of Judy next to her text. The yellow eggs and the helping
hands.

Lexia 25 — this lexia on its own page

20:21) Chris Abraham 01-SEP-94

Another passenger boards the autobus.

Fearing death at point blank range
by a man never met. Fear has set
and it rests in the sternum.
I extrocate myself from you.
I extrocate myself from you.
I extrocate myself from you.

The tickets to San Juan are not
first class. I will sit next to
Margaret and she will make a pass.

She will give me the name of her
hotel, the one on the package deal.

This after being dropped off at Dulles
by a woman with whom I spent my nights.

What to do, what to do?

The spine of the hardbound book, a
biography of Vonnegut, has a stiff
spine that I bend upon itself.

It crackles and I sit tight and
read, moving slowly away from the
girl, from the woman on a package tour,
from the modern superstructure of the
Dulles Terminal.

Lexia 26 — this lexia on its own page

20:22) Judy Malloy 03-SEP-94 11:59

Also named in this lexia: Valerie Gardiner.

In the package from Ann () there were tiny metal hearts and a smiling gold half moon. I am chewing the RELAX gum that accompanied these things, studying the Asian characters on its green and silver wrapping while Alice determines my blood pressure. She is getting married in December. I offer her some RELAX gum, and she makes a face.

In an East Coast Bar, Chris is drinking British ale, telling tales of his
South Pacific future. Like the ale, his car is brown "with the right
glasses and filters maybe a yellow color" In Valerie Gardiner's dream
(response #20, item #20 on Interactive on Arts Wire on TMN) a white haired
student has shot her point blank in the chest. Blood pools at her feet.

Last night, I was on a hillside gathering opulent flowers with long
stems with a man with white hair when we where attacked by the wild
horses that usually graze peacefully on this hillside the way they do
outside of Xerox Parc in Palo Alto and in fact it was this hillside in
the dream although I have never seen flowers like these growing there or
any where else for that matter, but I have never been in the tropics.
We stood our ground. They galloped past us, regrouping on an adjacent
hillside. "We need to go inside where they cannot see us," the man
said. He was holding a long stalk encrusted with pendulant bell-shaped
pink flowers.

"And what will the bridesmaids will wear?" I ask Alice.

Lexia 27 — this lexia on its own page

#18 of 33: Timothy Collins Sun Sep 4 '94

Here in Pittsburgh, we sit on the stoop at night listening to what we have discovered are night hawks. They fly rapidly then dive bomb flying bugs. The wind passing through their wings creates a loud buzzing noise. -They seem to be most active as the sun passes or rises. The book says they may be moving on to Mexico for the winter........they were quiet last night, it was about 62 degrees. Reiko and I wonder if their snuggling down in groups practicing their Spanish? Do they look forward to the winter in a souther town?

Brenda sends email, suggests that we ought to attempt to "gearhear" the little buggers. I like that word...gearhear. Too bad there is no "gear" (other than close observation) that'd let you hear the animals talk!

Lexia 28 — this lexia on its own page

20:23) Chris Abraham 05-SEP-94

Commuting to Mystic, Connecticut.
Driving up in a shit-brown diesel
getting there then feeling used
drive home the next day, girl
follows in a long Amtrak car.

White-haired men remind me of
age. The reaper, under his
soiled hood, had thick white hair.

Age is death
death is the reaper
the reaper has white hair
Donohue is death

A flier reads
September 1994 is the
end of the world, as per the bible.
The horses of the apocalypse are
in Judy's dream... where are the
horsemen?
The Donohue show.

A man with white hair shot me,
though, only with paint --
it was red, though, and stung.

She has lived with me for 98 days
without paying rent, never offered.

I am a chump

Lexia 29 — this lexia on its own page

20:24) Judy Malloy 06-SEP-94

Chris is driving home from Mystic Connecticut.
"girl follows in a long Amtrak car"

Silver walker with gray trim. Right leg powered.
My mangled left leg dangles painfully in its plastic cradle -
from bed to bathroom and back again.
I am clumsily recapturing control
of basic body functions.

Tim and Reiko are sitting outside in Pittsburgh. Evening -
listening to the buzz of the wind rushing through Night hawk wings.
They have read that the night hawks will be migrating to Mexico soon.
"Reiko and I wonder if their snuggling down in groups
practicing their Spanish?"

Back in bed, I sip water from a clean styrofoam cup.

Lexia 30 — this lexia on its own page

20:25) Judy Malloy 06-SEP-94

"My husband came over to Egypt to find a wife,"
says the small dark women with the unlikely name of Henrietta
"and that was me. I was 14 years old."
She lies sunk deep into her bed,
and there is no way of knowing what is wrong.
In a few days she will tell me,
or I will work up the courage to ask.

Chris thinks he's a chump,
but hell he has nothing on me.
I followed a rabbit down a pink petal strewn hole
while the planes flew low overhead.

"I bore 20 children, but 4 of them died," Henrietta says.
On the other side of the curtain that surrounds her bed,
one of the nurses grimaces and crosses her legs.

Horsemen.

Lexia 31 — this lexia on its own page

20:26) Chris Abraham 07-SEP-94

What is the reason for
one to sit cross-legged?

It is such a nice shape,
this leg-crossing, like
protection -- and the shape
of the calf and thigh.

A feminine shape, even on men.
"The English men often cross
their legs, though they are
not really in touch with their
feminine side," reads a book.

"You sur does pop dem babies
out, hos," a man said to a
proud pop, Catholic, exiled
from Dublin.

He lived in Jersey City, NJ.
He became nervous when black
families began to move into
the neighborhood. He plays
cards with them, but only until
he can move to the shore.

My father pole-vaulted over
the bars of a Honda motorcycle.
The front wheel stopped dead
in the side of a merging car.
Arching like olympiad then
down hard and a shattered shin.

He wore a helmet. The accident
occurred at 25mph, Kapiolani Street,
in Honolulu, Hawaii, many years
ago. A mangled leg, a large man,
a cast so enormous it needed
outriggers -- too Hawaiian to bear.

I am a chump. I can be used.
I have 'nice guy' written on
my forehead. I am not very daring.

Oh boy, can I be an asshole, though.
Remember when I was a bike courier?
Remember drinking 40's at Dupont?
Remember dropping and the world
blurs?

They were girls, and I left at
6:30am, "I am late for class."

What classes start at 6:30am.

"Chris, you prefer to be used
because it is better than using,"
said Mark, the dashing red head,
"and you know you can shoulder
being done wrong, whereas you
know your cold-hearted doing
wrong does damage that most can't
shoulder."

"Sounds logical, but pretty stupid!
I mean, why do *I* need to be the
martyr?"

When I spend my chump dollar,
do I get chump change in return?

Lexia 32 — this lexia on its own page

#20:27) Valerie Gardiner 10-SEP-94

Bad lightening storms last night.
I went out this morning. The grass around my house had grown to seven inches tall. And each blade was singed brown at the top, still bright green at the base.

None of the other houses had singed grass.

In another dream, I saw a silver Mercedes rolling along I-95 without a driver. The Arizona license plates said SCIBE.

A young man on a Honda motorcycle shouted to me from the neighboring lane.
I could hear him perfectly, even though the traffic was heavy. He shouted that he was riding to Hawaii and could I point him west.

The kids at the Deep Creek School are shouting at me from the inside of a manilla envelope.

I can't get any peace.

Lexia 33 — this lexia on its own page

20:28) Judy Malloy 10-SEP-94 19:05

Arts Wire: An electrical storm has singed the grass brown
in Valerie's yard.
Hers is the only yard in her neighborhood effected in this way.

On the same system in an adjacent response,
Chris's father is flying through the air
over the bars of his Honda motorcycle.
" The front wheel stopped dead
in the side of a merging car. "

All I remember is what looked like a disconnected rubber foot
bleeding profusely with bones protruding -
lying beside me on the unbearably hot pavement.

The witnesses tell different stories:
I was walking a bike on the crosswalk
or I was riding a bicycle across the Avenue.
when the car appeared.
They heard a scream.

Lexia 34 — this lexia on its own page

20:29) Chris Abraham 12-SEP-94

"Long Day's Journey Into Night."
It is a drama of layers.
A foot disconnected. Amputation?
The loss of self. It may itch
in the late hours when you can't
sleep, someone said, but you won't
be able to scratch. My father's
leg shattered in so many places--
thank's to the crack surgeon who
was stationed in a MASH unit in
Vietnam.

I drank 2 ponds of jello shots
at a party on Saturday night.
I always had a cup full.
I wanted my lover to get lost,
there were so many beautiful
girls, and they were speaking
to me. I cinepanned the party
with my third eye, 72mm hi-res
glassy.

"It is so easy to kill someone,"
said Steve at Adams Morgan day,
"because we're all so fragile and
it only take but one accurate
application of pressure: trigger,
larynx, sternum." He had just
seen "Natural Born Killer."

"I quit my job, and worked all
summer, only two days a week.
I just walk around, all day.
I just walk around all day.
I have stopped smoking and drinking.
The gay community doesn't embrace
someone who doesn't smoke or drink.
I am a dormant alcoholic.
When the movie was over,
A Porno flick about zen at the
Biograph, it really sucked and
I walked out right away, I got
a pack or reds, and walked the
city smoking all the while. Whenever
I found a bar, I'd order an Absolut.
I went through 10 cigs. I left the
house at noon and didn't return until
midnight.

All of my friends are fag-hags.
Pretty straight men with red hair.
Very dashing and lithe, it drives
my girlfriends crazy. I am a bit
of a fag-hag...

At lease *I* smoke and drink.
At least the gay community hasn't
turned up their nose at me.
Steve said," They think I am making
like I am better then them for quitting."

Oh, by the way, "I didn't smoke, drink,
or do pot," he said, "but I'll do
hallucinogens whenever I can get my hands
on it." He kissed my love on the lips
when we left his side.

- - - - -

Lexia 35 — this lexia on its own page

20:30) Judy Malloy 17-SEP-94

FROM: Daniel E. Sorent, Computer Specialist, Mapirota County Court These writings were on a computer disk found under the pillow of patient Q. in September 1994, after she disappeared from the Mapirota Nursing Home. The evidence is that she left the home under her own volition and that other than the disappearance of a jar of bacitracin and a Mapirota issue hospital gown, there was no foul play involved. The individuals whose writings are associated with those of patient Q. have been cleared of any complicity in the bacitracin theft.

Lexia 36 — this lexia on its own page

20:31) Chris Abraham 19-SEP-94

A wholesome weekend in
Connecticut with a
wholesome single mom
who works two nursing
jobs to send her girls
through the best schools.

Their cat, they have three,
brought a dead rat to the
door. The rodent lay wet and
decapitated in the grass.

"The cats knew we were having guests
and thought to bring a larger gift."

I loaded the Mercedes with
furniture, ate shrimp at lunch,
and drove off from the woman
who works from 6am until 11:30pm,
seven days a week.

Making love at chez mere has its
own thrill.

"I am bleeding," she said when we
were between the sheets and I
felt the cat's hairs tickling my
over-sensitive snazolla.

My car hunched in the drive,
wet and heavy, encased in the
night's fetal sac.

Two boys, the Olivera's, stood
in the woods to peep on the middle-
aged blonde next door.

"What are you to boys doing in the woods?"
queried dad in a loud voice.

"She's got kids!" Said my love.

"My mother has credit problems," she said.
"Upon divorce, she cut up her side of the
credit cards, but the report says she
is in deep trouble, that she moved with
her dead husband among many halfway houses,
in and out of jail, into a drunken death,
head broken in a bathroom late at night."

Her dead alcoholic ex-husband even
fucks her from the dead. That's what
I call a living memory: the TRW credit
report.

Amen.

Lexia 37 — this lexia on its own page

20:32) Valerie Gardiner 30-SEP-94

I made a reservation for a room with two double beds. Alice got the key from the desk. We took the elevator. Our room was large, but crammed with ten double beds. Alice and I were assigned one of the beds.

A middle-aged blond and a barely-grown man sat close together on the last bed in the row. I walked up and spoke to them. I wanted to be friendly, to make the best of an uncomfortable situation.

They turned and glared at me.

Lexia 38 — this lexia on its own page

20:33) Judy Malloy 02-OCT-94

I was on the road again
lying awake in an unfamiliar bed -
was the laughter in the background when I called him
from the phone booth at the shopping center
a part of a recent dream?
It was difficult to remember.

Lexia 39 — this lexia on its own page

20:34) Valerie Gardiner 02-OCT-94

I was on the road again
lying awake
the gas gauge is no longer reliable
I have to count each mile
Mentally ticking each little green milepost

Judy said there was a phone booth at the shopping center
but I don't see one

Lexia 40 — this lexia on its own page

20:35) Chris Abraham 04-OCT-94

I spent the evening under the influence
and saw right through the paltry haze
under which I have spent my days before
the page, a pen gripped tight, pressing
out the butts into an empty tea cup.

I watched the night glow in RGB.
I saw the devil in a friend.
I spoke a world of talk with only
the briefest of words like Huxley
might have during his aged voyages
beyond on the wings of the fetid cactus.

We viewed in the face of the other
Family trees and idolatry and shape was
indeterminate. Shape is indeterminate.
All of a sudden, Mersault was both
free to act and kill, but held accountable
here, immediate, stuck enough not to
rip the fibres of the space, of the time.

"We live in a home page. We decided
and agree to live here, and to have
all of our hyper link s pointed to
themselves," said my friend. Some
understand what there are link s away,
to other pages where here and now was
is and will be before and later. At once.

An eight hour regression, a full SCSI
link when used to the printer cable, the
local talk. Crashing together in main line
to where we were inside the other's head.
"Oh, stop those parlour games!" he yelled
heavily when I began to realize the strange
sensation of our world and it's existence
as only a self-directing home-page. The
bottom of the hot list, the forgotten
arrogant html.

It is the oversoul of the Germans, borrowed
by Emerson.

It is the portal of the religious, like
a pinprick showing but a portion of all
the time/space link s. The World Wide Web,
the internet, is as close as we shall come
to the true self-sustaining self-preservation
of our universe. Ripe with virii and
AI, rife with synapses and nerve ending, with
no central control but rather wholey dependent.
To kill one node, the rest reroutes and persists.

And then it was morning. And then my head
throbbed. And then I stood and shook it off.
And then I went home to bed. And then I could
never be sure as to exactly what had happened.
I was a little ashamed to have opened so widely
the reducing valve like taking too much water
from a pressurized hoze-- one winces and gags.
I wish I had remained innocent and blase and
a little stupid. I was warned that this isn't
what's supposed to happen.

Lexia 41 — this lexia on its own page

20:36) Joseph Wilson 04-OCT-94

Yesterday I realized that Popes have laps just like everyone else. I reached for my bandaged phone to call the past and see how it's doing in the present. It's aging, balding, and procreating. Stories changed from drinking adventures to nursery school adventures but I never saw the transition in subject coming. Wisdom seemed a little more tangible, retrospect does that. Busy lives become more dense with activity, understanding how much time has passed makes it a little more tolerable. History gets a little thicker, bad times iced over, hurt buried in rationalization. The past was still at the other end of the phone and that was enough this time.

I keep thinking all I need is one day, just one.

Lexia 42 — this lexia on its own page

20:37) Judy Malloy 06-OCT-94 14:22

I was on the road again
lying awake up with pillows and pink acrylic blankets
in the back of the car.
Was the laughter a part of a recent dream?
It was difficult to remember, and I was repeating myself.

Night sweats plastered my hair to the side of my face.
In the back, it still hung ragged
where I cut off the blood and sweat matted clumps
with the strangely shaped silver scissors that
the night nurse inadvertently left on the table.

It was dark. "Come over and talk to me," Margaret had said.

"I can't because my leg is broken."

"Your leg is broken? How do you get around?" she asked
In the morning she was dead.

On ArtsWire, Valerie, also, has been "lying awake".

Lexia 43 — this lexia on its own page

20:38) Judy Malloy 06-OCT-94

Also named in this lexia: Joseph Wilson.

In the phone booth, I watched the black case
that contained my laptop carefully,
leaning my sliver metal crutches against the black metal telephone
while I fumbled for change.
"Yesterday I realized that Popes have laps
just like everyone else,"
Joseph Wilson said on topic 20.

There was no jack in that telephone booth
that Valerie couldn't find
so I had to speak into the receiver
although I would rather have used my fingers
on the keyboard.
"We live in a home page," Chris' friend had said.

Lexia 44 — this lexia on its own page

20:39) Chris Abraham 06-OCT-94

Sharon Olds thinks of the Pope's penis:
A bell's clapper within the robes.

Mark thinks of the universe as a WWW
Mark considers the earth a self-directed
home page.

I wish I hadn't loosened the spout
of this frail ineffective reducing valve.

As we are, I am a mouse, not l'homme de la
nature.

I never run horns first into a wall painted red.

Is this perception not akin to getting around
as though freed from crutches, or is it
crippling?
Robb said, "we have never experienced this before.
I know what the chemical effects are, and it isn't
this."

He said this while mark and I began to
share the URL that allowed us to link to other
more graphical pages.

Lexia 45 — this lexia on its own page

20:40) Joseph Wilson 06-OCT-94

I got the one day and it is seeming to make a difference or I'm just a gullible shopper. Finally got the suit for a wedding that reeks of expectations. I am expected to (fill in the blank). The suit was $42, used, blue, from the forties. I feel like Jimmy Stewart gone bad. I am Jimmy Stewart gone bad. The tie was $18, the damn tie was $18 and the suit was $42! Who is in charge of the calculations department. I hate buying things to where at things where everyone else is wearing their things and commenting how good each other looks in their things. I kept thinking "can't wear this at a funeral." Everything is a fucking parade: weddings, funerals, graduation, church, birth if it's a multiple. Bowing my head feels like hypocrisy so I don't and if anyone notices they're cheating. As with all family functions I bring a camera, video keeps them way off, too linear for idle chat, questions and answers quicken in front of the glowing red light. "On The Air" they think, blue suit Mom will think, Dad will think it looks like Jimmy Stewart gone bad, sister will think it is Jimmy Stewart gone bad. "So when are you going to do it?" they will ask me, the last of a set of three with a light left hand. "I'm the fucked up middle child" I say "and I won't do it without a marching band going right up the aisle playing All You Need is Love." It's all a damn parade.

Lexia 46 — this lexia on its own page

20:41) Judy Malloy 09-OCT-94

Two cowboys with tight black jeans
and shirts so white they shone in the dim evening light
stood with their backs to me - in front of Rosalinda's bed.
"She's pretty isn't she?" one of the nurses said,
and I nodded my head.

Meanwhile, Margaret sat erect like a fragile baby bird
while her daughter, Juanita,
fed her black bean soup from a metal thermos.

I fell asleep and dreamed that
white trucks pulled in and out of the cul-de-sac, and
I wrote to Las Vegas for information on wedding chapels.
The owner and his wife smiled at me
when I stepped out of the hot sun - into the mail room
on the day that the information came.

When I woke up, Joseph's words stuck out on my screen:
"I won't do it without a marching band going right up the aisle
playing All You Need is Love," he said.

Lexia 47 — this lexia on its own page

20:42) Judy Malloy 09-OCT-94

In this dream, I went to the library twice.
The first time, a man wearing a red and white HOHOKUM tee shirt
followed me to the xerox machine.
The second time, he wasn't there.

I must have navigated too far in Goldwater country without a home page,
I thought when I woke up.
(Although it was always a choice that I wanted -
not a series of orchestrated echoes.)

On Arts Wire Chris had written these words while I was asleep:
"Mark thinks of the universe as a WWW."

Lexia 48 — this lexia on its own page

20:43) Timothy Collins 18-OCT-94

I was standing in crystal clear water, the sun was warm, not a breath of wind. large swells would come buy, gently lifting me off my feet. I stood with people how many or who was irrelevant. I felt the earth with my toes and the water with my body. I bobbed with each passing wave, I couldn't be more content. I began to feel forms in the sand. I dove under and realized their were hundreds of large clams just under the sand. I picked on up and brought it up. The hard edges of the shell were link ed by a soft fleshy membrane as the clam seemed to gasp......I dropped it. I went back under and began to dig and touch many clams fascinated by their hard shells. I saw something out of the corner of my eye........had to go to the surface for air. It was soooo quiet, still and scerene people were still about but they were silent and relatively motionless. I dove back under and noticed......a young boy, who appeared to have downs syndrome, was still underwater. I looked closer and was confused he seemed to be breathing .......water. I freaked with the dual realization that what he was doing was actually "drowning" and he needed my help and from the other people just standing around.

The weird part is, I remember him clearly calmly standing on the bottom head under water and happily looking about. Their was no.......visible signs of discomfort.

- - - - -

Lexia 49 — this lexia on its own page

20:44) Chris Abraham 20-OCT-94

Caffeine courses through my
body. I can barely bare
being in my body, and to rip
out like a birthing chick
would be devine, but beyond
expectation. Don't even have a valium
on hand, but if I did, I wouldn't
get anything done. It would make
me feel like I was emersed in warm
water, a bath, an umbilical torqued
beneath my jawline, reducing
oxygen flow (floe). The
reds and the yellows at my
desk shimmer and this has
never happened but I am so
afraid that I may become sleepy
so I continue to drink the
stale black coffee at the kitchen
in the company I am writing from.
Companies must be fed. I am being
a bad worker bee-- I do not play
well with others-- I must be
good to the people with whom I work.
I'd rather be a Queen, sitting on my
ass and creating, popping them out--
or if a worker, like the termites in
Africa who build tall mounds with
deep dungeons and tall towers-- high
architectural myth if on par with us
would exceed 2 miles up, up, up and
away. My powerbook is in the shop and what
will

I

do

when I am on the

road in the mad dash to escape from feeding this crazy
cafinated beast here at 2000 15th Street North,
Suite 107, Arlington, VA 22201????

Across to Puerto Rico (is Old San Juan
the things of dreams or is it like the shimmering
fractals everywhere and the shimmering RGB of
newly ingested LSD?

I have many opinions on Huxley's reducing valve.

Old San Juan with its wrought iron, with its tangent
streets (not unlike mine) and then in my mind, the synapse
misfired and I forgot the train of thought-- the trainwreck
ADD.

How much is that doggy in the window?

Lexia 50 — this lexia on its own page

20:45) Judy Malloy 22-OCT-94

With the aid of a poem, I breached the firewall at PARC
but was repelled by the sheer volume of accumulated messages.
The 376 messages on the WELL were shifting with vague unease -
like an old warm waterbed.
Every one on Arts Wire reached out with solid,
comforting snail mail.

Caffeine courses through Chris' body.
Tequila courses through mine.
I haven't had a decent cup of coffee
since before the accident.
The procedure is too arduous.

Stealthy I plugged in the 286
with dBase on my mind,
but the telephone rang.
"What is the Internet?"
Bill wanted to know.

Lexia 51 — this lexia on its own page

20:46) Judy Malloy 22-OCT-94

On Arts Wire, Tim was standing in "crystal clear water" when he
saw the young boy with downs syndrome standing underwater
with "no.......visible signs of discomfort. "

In Palo Alto (the server is the basement)
Cathy feels like a ghost
and so do I - trailing text on the dim laptop monitor.
I turned white
when the physical therapist brought in the stationary bicycle.
"I guess you're not ready for that," he said.
He took it away.

On LambdaMOO, Pavel, as usual, knows all the answers.
There was only 1 message on Poniecki.
Nobody but Christine knows how to find me there.
I studied the lumps in the Jobst interim stocking on my leg
while I typed a response.

"After the accident she was never the same."

Lexia 52 — this lexia on its own page

20:47) Judy Malloy 28-OCT-94

I had entered a room that like many of the rooms in Lambda house was
described in such a way that I was able to visualize it.
I had started in the living room,
but this evening the fire was not lit,
and it was cold in the spot beside the fireplace where I usually sit.
The room I was in was a kitchen
in which worn, comfortable antiques
coexisted with extraordinary food dispensing devices.

I sat down at the table and pushed a button marked "order food".
Across the table, a couple were talking.
Although it was obviously a private conversation,
it was impossible not to hear what they were saying.
"If those messages were for me
than they should have been sent earlier, "
the woman said. She was fighting back tears.

Lexia 53 — this lexia on its own page

20:48) Valerie Gardiner 31-OCT-94 18:38

Huxley's reducing valve went fishing.

Lexia 54 — this lexia on its own page

20:49) Chris Abraham 02-NOV-94 14:48

... and caught a shimmering neon platypus wearing a Versace evening gown.

Lexia 55 — this lexia on its own page

20:50) Valerie Gardiner 02-NOV-94 18:53

Maureen is speaking to me. I can hear the noise of her speech, but can't understand her words. The sound goes off. I watch her mouth open and close.

Lexia 56 — this lexia on its own page

20:51) Valerie Gardiner 02-NOV-94 18:56

She holds a heavy bunch of fabric. It looks like gold curtains. I watch her mouth open and close. The throws the fabric in my face. Now I can hear her. She is screaming, "Versace! Versace! Versace!..."

Lexia 57 — this lexia on its own page

20:52) Chris Abraham 03-NOV-94 9:47

A small lithe italian man walks sing song
along a beach in miami. He rubs his short
crop hair with a fist while pondering the
import of his early drug-taking. As a young
boy in Yungaburra, he used to dress small
marsupials in gold lame while singing arias
in aboriginal tongue. The neon sign hung
just behind the sodden dirty window of the
desert's oasis, deep in the outback, far away.
It swung slightly, crackling XXXX. A Wombat,
blown horribly off course, stumbled in in sequins,
its handbag a rediculous mauve. The men looked
down over their beers and through the smoke
of phillip morris and, as tears formed in
their reddened eyes, passing leather torn
ravaged skin, they bellowed in absurd contraltos:
Versace! Versace! Versace! Versace!

The jetliner's hum lowered him into Miami.
The club kids came to greet him, showering him
with Finlandia and caplets of Ecstacy. In his
limo, the sunroof drawn aside, Luciano sold out
his voice to another Broadway album and people
swayed, rubbing sheer silk fabrics into
a dizzying array of golds and earth tones.
The king is dead long live the Queen.

Lexia 58 — this lexia on its own page

20:53) Judy Malloy 11-NOV-94

From the floor,
I retrieved the ocher yellow sneaker that I had unsuccessfully
tried to jam on my slightly misshapen foot.
"Crutches are a nightmare,"
said the woman arranging shirts on the shelf.

I sat down on a black chair beside the shoe rack.
Suddenly I was riding from Tempe to Telluride in a black truck -
surrounded by sickenly familiar forced analogies.
In these situations, as I once told an eleven year old friend,
it is best to walk away with dignity.
I stood up from the chair.
(You are in a small store where the walls are lined with
folded clothes on wooden shelves.)
In a British accent, she offered to help me with the other shoe.
Limping with dignity, I accepted her help.

On Arts Wire, Chris and Valerie are repeating the word Versace.
I have no idea what it means.

Lexia 59 — this lexia on its own page

20:54) Joseph Wilson 11-NOV-9

Big Brother is barking down my throat into my studio. 17 years of games and the codes are suddenly important and changes have to happen, money pressures. New walls will change things, 2 weeks I have to leave my place for the dogs to come in for a new hall, lit signs, smaller space results lots of shows to get together. Silver lining I keep thinking, silver lining. What is it national fuck with artists year?? Had to miss the BSO doing John Cage to sit around a meeting room and talk strategy talk money talk footage talk games talk rules talk strategy talk timing talk signals talk lawyers. I think lucky I am not out on my own without anyone to ask. This is another time I think unorganized artists are stupid artists. I can't post shit on here with any coherence. my hair line is chasing my back collar button and the script to "It's a Wonderful Life" sits to my right. Fitting I am condensing it into a five minute piece to perform in a week. Judy posted while I was on-line, I saw that new response number at 2:26 and it called me back to rant to abstract complaints, worries. I don't have to use crutches to navigate through the density of my obstacles. It could be worse I think. Silver lining I keep saying,silver lining. The BSO is warming up on the radio live, I taped the Cage piece. The announcer had a tone in his voice when he talked about Cage, a sarcastic tone, an eltist tone.

Lexia 60 — this lexia on its own page

20:55) Valerie Gardiner 12-NOV-94

I stayed in my hive all during national fuck with artists year. I did go out once, to a PC Users Group meeting. But no one there knows I'm an artist. There was a guy giving a presentation on typefaces. How to choose typefaces for your documents. The man sitting next to me had a really bad hairpiece. I heard that they're hiring instructors the new COMP-USA that just opened on White Plains Road.

Lexia 61 — this lexia on its own page

20:56) Judy Malloy 19-NOV-94

Today (while Joseph kept saying "silver lining"
and the man sitting next to Valerie at the PC user's meeting
had a bad hairpiece
and elsewhere on Arts Wire,
Bill tried to locate a copy of the Republican contract),
I encountered two men with white hair -
one was a bad painter from Vermont
and the other was drinking Peet's coffee on a bench on Solano Avenue.
While I was waiting for a taxi, he left on a ten-speed bicycle.

Using one of my ten taxi vouchers,
I went home in a yellow cab and faxed an orthopedic surgeon.
(looking for an opinion)
Although a fixed disk failure on my 286 obliterated his responses,
there was a letter from an excellent plastic surgeon in the mail.
"I would be very much interested
in any photographs that you may have of your legs, side by side,
in a standing position, from front to side."

As I leaned over to remove the ants
from the catfood dish in the kitchen, Film at eleven.

Lexia 62 — this lexia on its own page

20:57) Joseph Wilson 19-NOV-94

The film at eleven will contain the footage of her daughter in law shot in Costa Rica during a robbery attempt. The door knocked. On the other side was the request for me to get off line so my line would be open for a phone call filled with horrible news and tears on plastic. It always seem so far away to me not mine not mine

Lexia 63 — this lexia on its own page

20:58) douglas - sternklang dogs 20-NOV-94

not saying anything
why the name
the bay area is, perhaps, not southwest enough a new day dawns
not wanting to say anything
there is a fear about how things will change, yet they change
nonetheless onward not knowing unable to know
the radio says good human beings make good music

Lexia 64 — this lexia on its own page

20:59) Valerie Gardiner 20-NOV-94

Good music beings made radios. Until the factory was closed. They made too many rests. And no one wanted to buy them. Because everyone knows that rests are free and very easy to make on your own.

Lexia 65 — this lexia on its own page

20:60) Joseph Wilson 23-NOV-94 10:44

Boxed loved ones cross international borders during the same days others are on their way to visit their loved ones. On the same plane with grandchildren and uncles, sisters and brothers a widow and a motherless child. It changes when it gets remotely close to you, when it affects someone you know well, your inner circle. I try to think of Harold dancing with the banjo celebrating what was and not mourning what is gone. Then I remember it was just a movie.

Tomorrow pilgrims and indians sit at the same table in a spirit of happiness and sharing in someone's imagination. You can't tell me it didn't happen, you can't!! When I took the last swig of shiraz I caught a fruit fly between my lips. No matter how good the wine is, there is always something fucking it up. Hum the national anthem, don't sing it you don't know the words, hum it, every bar of it. I work on thanksgiving and I get payed double time. I give thanks when the check comes the next week.

who telnets on holidays?

Lexia 66 — this lexia on its own page

20:61) Judy Malloy 25-NOV-94

Unexpected email from Chris arrived at the WELL.
He was leaving town - abandoning his local system.
moving out in netspace on a carrier called photo.com
while I sat in Brennan's in Berkeley
with my leg propped up on the bar stool that stood between me
and a man I had never seen before -
a therapist with dark circles around his eyes.
He played the drums and had been to Africa.
"Deprivation", he said.
I squirmed in cold pain on the stool.
(Do you want to see what my leg looks like?)

Regardless of Joseph's words
("nobody telnets on the holidays),
on The Well, information was moving into my account in formation
"I think that many artists were deprived or isolated
in childhood," the therapist said.
On Arts Wire, I was going to respond,
but the system hung up.

Nevertheless, when asked,
I wrote my phone number in red ink
on a beer riddled paper napkin.
I was thinking about the German army marching into Eastern Europe,
ants moving to the water dish of the cat,
and the lines of information seeping in to poniecki@berkeley.edu
at that very moment.

(Do you want to see what my leg looks like? )

Lexia 67 — this lexia on its own page

20:62) Judy Malloy

Also named in this lexia: Douglas Cohen.

Sitting in the waiting room for over an hour while
everyone else's name was called,
I repeatedly flipped through Vogue magazine,
wearing baggy red sweat pants.

Eric was right about URL's. They are ubiquitous now.
"there is a fear about how things will change, yet they change"
were the words that Douglas used on Arts Wire.

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