• Equinox Weekend – Inconsolably depressed, and for no good, acceptable (rational) reason.

  Spiraling outside my will. Surrounded by a wall. Falling down a well.

  But then… the thunder quieted a little and – between the soundcracks of the whirlwind – I began to hear multiple voices in my spirit.

  … wake up… wake up… wake up, love… look who’s here to see you…

  Friends. Light. Comfort….

  Take heart…. open your eyes… Arise!

  And then the gifts arrived, one after another…

• 3/24 – Dinner at the fantastic Rathbun’s Restaurant with Joseph and Marie-Claude and David. Friend vibes overwhelming – like an angel rescue. Readers of this blog will already know how much I admire Joseph and his work. I hadn’t seen him since I was last in Paris, and if anything, we’re more simpático now than we were then. It was totally lovely to meet Marie-Claude at last, and so fun to sneak out for a smoke with David. Even our waiter was fun. Oh! The food! They had yummy Wellfleet clams, and the Lamb Scaloppini was to die for. Oh! The conversation. I was totally relaxed and free. I haven’t had so much fun in ages. Just what I needed – thank you, cosmos.
  

  Heidi, Joseph, David, Marie-Claude

  

  John, Heidi and Joseph

• 3/26 – The big event – Joseph’s terra incOgnitO gallery opening at David’s beautiful Wm. Turner Gallery in Atlanta.

  Take a look at the art! I’m writing an essay on the artwork (stay tuned), but meanwhile listen to this interview. Since Joseph’s art was on the cover, they also had a copy of John’s book there. Very nice.

  

  Friends turned up! Jerry was embroiled in conversations brilliant. Robert and Sloane (who appeared with a baby! how did they hide that little gem from us?!?!?) dropped in and on such as day as that there is much hugging. Geoff and Curzio got in some good conversations with Joseph and John, and I drank champagne and reveled in my happiness level. We went out for snackies afterwards and I got to meet David’s wife – a very cool woman who is – unfortunately – allergic to Facebook. Wah. I was able to speak at greater length with Marie-Claude, and hear all about their impressions of Atlanta. There were foot rubs! Perfect evening.

• 3/27 – Jeff and Ann made a very brief swoop-in visit to Atlanta for an occasion, and we arranged to meet them with some of their friends at Manuel’s Tavern (prior to having dinner at Cafe di Sol). Manuel’s is the hangout of Atlanta liberals – yes, we exist! John and I showed up at the appointed hour, and it was hilarious because we wandered all around seeking but not finding. I had never actually met Jeff or Ann. I adore all of Jeff’s fiction (read him – he’s top notch – really, maybe the best living American writer) and we had all become friends via online interconnections, but I wasn’t completely confident about picking them out at a crowded bar/restaurant. John and I did several circuits around the place, garnering some curious looks, but didn’t see them anywhere. We saw a young woman standing outside, also looking around and waiting, but we didn’t think to ask her if she was looking for them, too. Finally, we walked down the street to see if they had decided just to go straight to Cafe di Sol – which turned out to be the old Cafe Diem where I spent far too much time as a graduate student. Nope.

  Finally, we went back to Manuel’s and ordered a drink at the bar. That was fortuitous, since we then became involved in conversation with two very charming men – one who lived in a part of France that we’ve wanted to visit (John cornered him for details), and another that I clicked with right away – he works at GA Tech and is originally from New York. We were soon trading stock phrases in northern accents and having a grand time. We all exchanged contact information…. Then, I had a sensation on the back of my skull, looked toward the door, and there they were, just walking in!

  And yes, the beautiful young woman – Desirina – a talented writer in her own right- had also been waiting. Along with were more creative cool friends Will and Sara – but I hardly even got to talk with them at all! Why? Why? Because the restaurant was too darned noisy, that’s why! The old Cafe Diem was always more subdued – it was easier to talk then.

  

  Sara, Desirina, Heidi, Ann, John, Jeff

  John and Jeff huddled – it sounded like it was probably a fun conversation, but I only got little bits of it. I’m sorry for that, because I would have liked to talk more with Jeff, but I can’t complain because I had a fabulous time talking with Ann. She brought us issues of the magazine she edits – Weird Tales. Yes, that’s right – THE Weird Tales. Why I don’t already have a subscription to that, I have no idea (that’s been rectified). The magazine is on the ballot for a Hugo this year. Even against the steep competition, I think they’re going to take it. Ann is an amazing woman – I love her, and she is henceforth considered to be my sister, with all associated benefits.

  

  Ann with Digital Kitty

  Click! Click-click – CLICK! Thank you, benevolent deities, inc.

• 3/28 – Ok, now I’m officially over-socialled and crashing fast, but there’s more! Dear friends Mark and Marty threw a rock-climbing birthday party for their son – this was in addition to the new puppy, lucky kid. John wasn’t feeling well, so I packed up Ben and off we went.

  This is the second year they’ve done this, and there’s a confluence between me, the rock-climbing place, and the presence of pounding rain. As I approach this building, it’s pelting rain. Once I enter the building, the rain dies down and stops. Silly, you say?

  Yes, but oh, it goes further! I accompanied Mark to go fetch the pizza and ice-cream cake. Again, as we approached the building – RAIN! Once inside… no rain. It made me feel a little like Tyrone Slothrop in Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Sometimes even magical paranoia can be fun. We had a low-key and enjoyable afternoon. I got exactly three photos before my cellphone died. Great expression, Marty!

  

  Marty

  Oh, Mark: Linen which?

• Well, then it hit. The pollen. Pollen! Pollen! More Pollen! It knocked me out for most of last week, and I’m not quite recovered even yet. But how could I let a shining week like that go by without comment?

  Thank you to my beautiful lovely smart creative wonderful friends of the spirit. You make me remember.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. ~ Oscar Wilde

Communication whose style and content is dictated by constraints imposed by the rules of a scene is more creative, even more joyful, even if the realities of the life that produces the thought is very difficult.

Jean Baudrillard did some of this work in bemoaning the loss of the scene itself, which is the stage for the distinction between good and evil that we all navigate. Without the binary antipodes of cultural constraint, do we really find motivation to do anything of importance?

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. ~ Oscar Wilde

Art communicates what cannot be expressed by other means. There is more truth in fiction and in art than in any amount of moralizing speech.

When homosexuality could not be spoken, thinkers and artists – and even politicians – discovered ways to indicate what was already known, and to do it without speaking it. We love to bust these out into the open, but the art was all about indications and play.

It made great art. Plays, paintings, poetry, speeches, philosophies…

Oppressed people can create the most amazing stuff – amazing music, amazing fiction. Think of Russian novelists. Think of black gospel music compared to the dirge-like church music of privileged white colonizers. It’s true that abject poverty can also denigrate people below any ability to create, too, but among them… always a genius, a prophet.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s not at least part of what is meant by not being “of this world.” The rewards of this world – money, power, and so on – are rewards in themselves. They are rewards for now, to be enjoyed now. But that’s all.

The rewards of those who are censored and constrained and even oppressed are, by their very structure and nature, more complex – more insightful – more subtle – more deeply real. When you care enough to work around tough rules of expression, you find a way – like life itself always finds a way.

It will be a marvelous thing – the true personality of man – when we see it. It will grow naturally and simply, flower-like, or as a tree grows. It will not be at discord. It will never argue or dispute. It will not prove things. It will know everything. And yet it will not busy itself about knowledge. It will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by material things. It will have nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. It will not be always meddling with others, or asking them to be like itself. It will love them because they will be different. And yet, while it will not meddle with others, it will help all, as a beautiful thing helps us by being what it is. The personality of man will be very wonderful. It will be as wonderful as the personality of a child. In its development it will be assisted by Christianity, if men desire that; but if men do not desire that, it will develop none the less surely. For it will not worry itself about the past, nor care whether things happened or did not happen. Nor will it admit any laws but its own laws; nor any authority but its own authority. Yet it will love those who sought to intensify it, and speak often of them. And of these Christ was one. “Know Thyself” was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, “Be Thyself” shall be written. And the message of Christ to man was simply “Be Thyself.” That is the secret of Christ. ~ Oscar Wilde

The traditions of men serve to stabilize communities, but they also create boundaries that are made to be flirted with – deconstructed. As you toe the line, you doodle all around that line. Without a line, you can’t… doodle.

It’s not brazen. It’s not open. It’s not honest. And yet – isn’t it more truthful to experience? Doesn’t it really address you all the more forcefully?

It does me.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind— ~ Emily Dickinson

“…music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret. This, also, is the explanation of the value of limitations in art. The sculptor gladly surrenders imitative colour, and the painter the actual dimensions of form, because by such renunciations they are able to avoid too definite a presentation of the Real, which would be mere imitation, and too definite a realisation of the Ideal, which would be too purely intellectual. It is through its very incompleteness that art becomes complete in beauty, and so addresses itself, not to the faculty of recognition nor to the faculty of reason, but to the aesthetic sense alone, which, while accepting both reason and recognition as stages of apprehension, subordinates them both to a pure synthetic impression of the work of art as a whole, and, taking whatever alien emotional elements the work may possess, uses their very complexity as a means by which a richer unity may be added to the ultimate impression itself.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Messy Folksonomies: The Uses of Metanoise for Better Organizational Collaboration

This presentation will consider the uses of bottom-up, co-evolving folksonomies for better communication and collaboration across disciplinary lines.

For reasons of efficiency, semantic technologies often focus on terminological control. However, where several types of discourse exist within the same organization, a layer of bottom-up vocabulary provides a space for the change and difference that is always part of language. Language, like life, thrives on the border between order and chaos, and even the noisiest and most undifferentiated meta labels can serve a function.

Update 2-18: Actually, it looks like I’m not actually speaking after all. My proposal was accepted by the conference, but my support funding didn’t come through. Oh, well. Maybe next year.

Preview The Allure of Machinic Life at Google Books.

I’m a little annoyed about the title, since I preferred “The Lure of Machinic Life” to “The Allure of Machinic Life.” However, the absolutely wonderful bit on me me me in the acknowledgments almost makes up for it. The book cover is extra-special, too, because it features a suggestive artwork by our friend Joseph Nechvatal.

John Johnston

I’m biased, but I’m also a pretty good critical reader – and this book is fantastic. I think it’s been mislabeled by the marketing people, so I’m afraid that it won’t be read – and that would really be a shame.

Review
“John Johnston is to be applauded for his engaging and eminently readable assessment of the new, interdisciplinary sciences aimed at designing and building complex, life-like, intelligent machines. Cybernetics, information theory, chaos theory, artificial life, autopoiesis, connectionism, embodied autonomous agents—it’s all here!”
—Mark Bedau, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Reed College, and Editor-in-Chief, Artificial Life

In The Allure of Machinic Life, John Johnston examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments—”machinic life”—in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems, Johnston argues, machinic life has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right.

Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus on the “objects at hand”—the machines, programs, and processes that constitute machinic life—Johnston shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already changing. This understanding is a necessary first step, he further argues, that must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms of life.

Developing the concept of the “computational assemblage” (a machine and its associated discourse) as a framework to identify both resemblances and differences in form and function, Johnston offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences. He considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, including Lacanian psychoanalysis and “machinic philosophy.” He examines the history of the new science of artificial life and its relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems (as illustrated by a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms). He describes the history of artificial intelligence as a series of unfolding conceptual conflicts—decodings and recodings—leading to a “new AI” that is strongly influenced by artificial life. Finally, in examining the role played by neuroscience in several contemporary research initiatives, he shows how further success in the building of intelligent machines will most likely result from progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works.

Language is not only a virus (grin) but also an essential bit of the block of the discourse network that co-evolves with technological change and human action to give rise to the computational assemblage; or, machinic life is always already within you (and without you) but here are some of the details.

Now – go forth and buy many copies, and tell all thine friends (and thine enemies as well) to read and discuss.

Try these too!

• Information Multiplicity: American Fiction in the Age of Media Saturation
• Literature, Media, Information Systems: Essays by Friedrich A. Kittler (Critical Voices) – (introduction, edited and translated)
• Carnival of Repetition: Gaddis’s the Recognitions and Postmodern Theory (Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction)
• Foucault Live: Interviews, 1961-84 – (translated)
• In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities (Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents) – Jean Baudrillard – (translated)
• On The Line (Foreign Agents) – Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari – (translated)

Happy sigh. Ahhhhh…. two for browsing at leisure, one for candy satisfaction:

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
Rob Brezsny

Diva Lion says:

Pronoia is a philosophy book of a most unusual stripe. It takes a lot of the ideas that Breszny has developed on the Free Will Astrology site and particularly that he included as themes in his amazing novel, The Televisionary Oracle, and expands on them, shaping them into a chaotically coherent philosophy of life. The style is undeniably Breszny– quirky, irreverent, soulful, linguistically athletic, challenging, hopeful.

The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark
Sera Beak

Synopsis:

The Red Book” is a nothing less than a spiritual fire starter—a combustible cocktail of Hindu Tantra and Zen Buddhism, Rumi and Carl Jung, Mary Magdalene and modern psychics, goddesses and Gnosticism, shaken with cosmic nudges, meaningful subway rides, haircuts, relationships, sex, dreams, humor, and intuition. It’s a book that encourages women to live more consciously so they can start making clearer choices across the board, from careers to relationships, politics to pop culture and everything in between. For smart, gutsy, spiritually curious women whose colorful and complicated lives aren’t reflected in most spirituality books.

Making Money (Discworld Novels)
Terry Pratchett

Publisher’s Weekly review:

Reprieved confidence trickster Moist von Lipwig, who reorganized the Ankh-Morpork Post Office in 2004’s Going Postal, turns his attention to the Royal Mint in this splendid Discworld adventure. It seems that the aristocratic families who run the mint are running it into the ground, and benevolent despot Lord Vetinari thinks Moist can do better. Despite his fondness for money, Moist doesn’t want the job, but since he has recently become the guardian of the mint’s majority shareholder (an elderly terrier) and snubbing Vetinari’s offer would activate an Assassins Guild contract, he reluctantly accepts. Pratchett throws in a mad scientist with a working economic model, disappearing gold reserves and an army of golems, once more using the Disc as an educational and entertaining mirror of human squabbles and flaws.