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ATMOSPHERICS
Volume 1, number 4
Spring 1995
__________________________________________________________
Table of Contents:
Susan Keeping
Editorial
Allegra Slomana
fable, with appendices
Ayli Lapkoff
Exercise in fear
Decisions
David Dowker
from-MACHINE LANGUAGE
John Landry
From SCONTICUT
Jon-Paul Therriault
For Art's Sake
Mornin'
An Illumination of the Discourses Concerning the
Inverse Proportional Relationship Between Life and
Fairity
Die With Me
Jake Wadland
maclean's november fourteenth nineteen
ninety-four page ten second paragraph second sentence
period omitted
Underfoot Resilience
UPC
________________________________________________________________
This text may be freely shared amongst individuals, but it may
not be republished in any medium without express written consent
from the authors and advance notification of the editor. Rights
to stories remain with the authors. Copyright 1995, the authors.
_________________________________________________________________
Editorial:
Welcome to Atmospherics number 4!
Well, we've made it to the end of Volume 1. I'm still very
surprised that the journal has lasted this long. I guess it's
the pessimist in me. Thanks again for all the support you
have all given to the journal.
I'm republishing David Dowker's last submission. I was unaware
I hadn't receive the entire file of his selections from "Machine
Language". I'm really sorry about that David. It won't happen
again, I promise.
Two of Ayli Lapkoff's poems appear in this issue. Please, send me
more! Allegra Sloman has written a very intriguing thought
piece in "a fable, with appendices". This story is very pertinent
considering controls being proposed for e-mail right now in the
US Senate. John Landry has contributed a poem.
Jon-Paul Therriault has also contributed a few poems. Jake Wadham
has contributed a few poems, also.
As always, the contributions are first rate. I'd certainly
welcome more from each of the contributors and, of course, I
would love to receive submissions from anyone who takes the time
to e-mail them to me.
Atmospherics is available through anonymous FTP at:
etext.archive.umich.edu;
it is also available through WWW at:
http://moesbooks.com;
and
http://www.bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/hpp/Daedelus.html
(this is the Atmospherics home page)
it is available through Gopher at:
etext.archive.umich.edu.
Requests for subscriptions and submissions should be sent to:
Susan Keeping (keeping@library.utoronto.ca or billie@idirect.com)
Susan Keeping, editor
_________________________________________________________________
A fable, with appendices
This morning around 2 am I was just finishing up an email to
my mother in Victoria, when I gradually became aware that there
was someone else in the room besides me and the cat. This feeling
of uneasiness mixed uncomfortably with exhaustion. I felt myself
drop off, and then realized to my horror that two strangers were
sitting on my sofa.
I knew instantly that I was dreaming, but it was a wonderful
dream, so I happily greeted my insubstantial guests.
"Emma! Kropotkin! What are you two doing here?"
Kropotkin had a radiance of intelligence and compassion which
made me feel happy to be near him. Emma just looked mad.
"Woman, what are you doing?" she asked, impatiently.
Kropotkin looked at her quellingly, deploring her brusqueness.
Then he said, "We are curious. This is obviously an electrical
typewriter, but what are you doing with it?"
I can think of few people from the early part of this century
that would have been easier to explain e-mail to. They looked at
each other, and then at me.
"Are there any restrictions on who may use e-mail?" Kropotkin
asked.
"Time, money, literacy, a phone system and access to a computer,"
I replied, patting the keyboard. Emma was stroking the cat and
staring off into space. Kropotkin was thinking hard himself. I
had a premonition that two very good teachers were about to scold
me for not doing my lessons, and after a minute, alternating,
they began to pepper me with questions, which I tried to answer
as best as I could. My dream of meeting the two greatest
anarchists who ever lived was turning into a nightmare, as I was
forced to confront their expectations of me and see that I was no
better than the parasites I satirized.
In the end, Kropotkin summarized his findings, quietly and
without rancour. "You have access to the most sophisticated,
decentralized, if I may say so, anarchistic," and he put a
delicately ironic spin on the word, "system of communication yet
devised. It is virtually instantaneous, yet allows each
correspondent to develop ideas without interruption. It has
evolved even as an organism evolves, feeling its way through an
environment toward survival, and is a group of cooperative,
mutually supporting entities. To destroy it one would need to
destroy the world as it stands right now. Universities,
libraries, individuals, government bodies and fraternal
organizations use it. It is possible to send coded messages of
such complexity and volume that no single organization or person
could ever hope to control or censor them. Ideas move freely,
research into the important human problems is assisted, yet the
overwhelming majority of traffic between individuals consists of
discussions of the meanest possible sort."
"I meant for a woman's sex-desire to be openly discussed for the
purpose of freeing women from the institution of marriage, not to
be turned into yet another bourgeois fetish," Emma said, rolling
her eyes. I was going to assert that I had been married once, and
now lived in unwedded bliss, but she said, her earlier asperity
contained, "And what role do women play on this marvellous
creation you call the Net?"
"Ah, well," I said, fidgeting. "Most of the traffic is generated
and most of the nodes - post offices, you might say - are run by
men. But it's not very sexist, and there are lots of places for
women to discuss issues of concern to them, without having to
have men around."
Emma nodded, and then looked at Kropotkin.
"I see that many matters of a technical and scientific nature
have seen a great progression. What problems remain in this age
of marvels?" Kropotkin asked gently. "How much has changed among
our fellow humans?"
I took a deep breath, and said, "Things are mostly worse. The
problems are of such magnitude now that even a brave spirit will
quail in the face of them. Poverty of a kind unthinkable in your
day runs rife throughout the world. The goal of world wide
literacy is a like a half-remembered dream, and yet without it
women are subjected and the population skyrockets. The Earth, our
sustaining mother, is poisoned and skinned, and the destruction
breeds want and envy and war. The weather shows signs of
becoming more unstable. Many people live in areas that are
threatened by hurricanes and earthquakes; still more live where
plague, cholera, tuberculosis, poisonous earth and AIDS run
rife."
"Aid?" Kropotkin asked. "You speak of aid as if it was a
disease."
"When it's brought by Christians, it is," Emma said, under her
breath.
"Or missionaries of any kind," I said, smiling a little. "No,
it's a sexually transmitted disease that is very slow acting and
fatal, and has a very long latency period, during which you can
infect many, many others," I said. Looking at the problems of
the world hurt so badly that I began to sniffle to suppress my
tears.
Kropotkin produced a handkerchief, and all of us were surprised
that he could not actually give it to me. I felt the warmth of
his hand without actually feeling any pressure - a very odd but
somehow comforting feeling. I found a tissue and sat back down.
"Many people cling to beliefs that no longer serve them or their
children," I said. "Circumcision of both male and female
children, mass education for the purpose of producing slaves to
mass consumption, religious sentiment that breeds war and
repression, cutting down trees, overfishing the sea -"
"Overfishing the sea? How is that possible?" cried Emma.
I explained factory fishing to them, and they tried to imagine
the scale of pillage that would empty the sea of fish. I
explained how the biosphere, which contained answers to many
riddles and cures for many ailments, was losing its diversity as
thousands of species, some never identified, vanished to take
their place in the fossil record, or were utterly consumed.
Kropotkin was much more disturbed by this than Emma. I told them
about the implosion of the nation state, the awful roar in the
distance as the debts incurred by all nations threatened to rise
up and destroy every good thing that had managed to come from our
20,000 years or so of city dwelling and 'civilization'. I told
him about the coming race war, the doors slamming in immigrant
faces, the faceless capital that swooped down on profit and left
behind chaos, and the ever growing desire of those exploited to
be revenged by exploiting others, rather than massing together
and building according to their own immediate needs. I told them
about nuclear weapons and nerve gas, and Chernobyl and the
growing number of countries and individuals who would think
nothing of holding a jewel like Rome or Paris or New York to
ransom with a few kilos of poison in a suitcase. I told them
about genocide and terrorism and journalists getting shot. I
told them about how mass culture was so trivial and degraded,
and yet so subtle in its blandishments, that only a saint or a
fanatic could resist it, and I was neither.
"I am living in a small, quiet, relatively safe backwater in the
world," I said. "There is poverty, there is want, there is
ignorance, there is poison, but for the most part I am safe, and
I want to stay that way. My two children are asleep two rooms
away-"
Kropotkin said, "Let me see them!" Dreading what was coming, I
pushed the bedroom door open and let them see my children as they
slept curled up in the same bed.
"So these are the two innocents your irresolution will abandon to
the twenty-first century," Emma commented.
"That's not fair," I sobbed. I was now crying too hard to speak
coherently and fled back to the living room.
Emma stayed on her feet. "It was not fair that my comrade and I
were jailed, exiled, reviled and impoverished. It is not fair
that the world has, as you say, indeed become worse since we left
it," Emma said, and the passion in her voice was like a cold wind
blowing through me.
"You must use your gifts to help end this horror. You must stop
paying lip service to anarchism, only appreciating it as an ideal
because it somehow puts you in an intellectual vanguard. A
vanguard that does not move is merely another brick wall to be
torn down and thrown aside. Perhaps you think that the only
revolution is the one that occurs in the human heart, but there
is still work to be done," Emma said.
"Comrade. Hear us," Kropotkin said. "There is much to be done.
Put fear aside, put doubt aside, put your bourgeois concerns
aside. Many are living now who do not understand that the chains
that prevent them from assisting others are half a link away from
being severed. Let your actions and your words break those
chains - but start on your own chain first." He stood, and placed
an hand on Emma's shoulder. They gestured a farewell, and were
gone.
I woke up on the sofa a few hours later and couldn't sleep any
more. I had never in my life had such a real dream, recalling
the flash of Emma's glasses, being able to recall their sober
dress and their accents, and their final appeal. So I have
written it down, for what it is worth, and I append a list of
names, places, and ideas, which I hope will help me break the
chains I can no longer ignore - the doubt and fear that Red Emma
and Prince Kropotkin helped me to face last night.
This morning, my daughter said to me at breakfast, "Who were you
fighting with last night?" After a minute, I said, "Myself,"
because it was the truest answer I could make.
@ppendices
Dreamtime village, c/o Xexoxial Endarchy, Rt 1 Box
131, LaFarge, WI 54639 USA, 608-528-4619,
email dreamtimev@aol.com
Dreamtime village is a place in Wisconsin where a family/clan is
building a permaculture reality. Dreamtime village produces an
eerily beautiful and inspiring newsletter. They offer
apprenticeships in permaculture, hypermedia and construction, and
are looking for both visitors and permanent residents. Visitors
are welcome, but are required to give a daily stipend.
Black Rose Books, 3981 St Laurent #888, Montreal, Canada
(still!).
Bring a chequebook - they don't make change! This is the
editorial office of a major anarchist publisher.
Pretty Good Privacy.
PGP is a shareware program which allows military specification
(ie, damned near uncrackable) encryption of computer files so
that they can only be decrypted by the persons to whom they are
being sent.
Absolutely a requirement for secure transmission of files over
the Net. Persons who believe that the right to determine the
content of information rests with individuals rather than
governments are advised to obtain a copy - and use it. Consult
your local BBS for availability and upgrades. American citizens
should be aware that Mr.Zimmerman, the man who wrote the
software, is currently under indictment for exporting
cryptography software. Possession of this software may
shortly become illegal, so govern yourself accordingly.
Earthship.
This is the name of a house built out of used tires and pop cans.
This house, if constructed properly, does not require fossil fuel
for heat, supplies the inhabitants with water, and can be made
independent of the power grid. I have actually seen a house built
this way for the Canadian climate, in Paisley, Ontario. (E-mail
the author for further details on tours). Information about it
can be obtained from Solar Survival Architecture, PO Box 1041,
Taos, New Mexico, 87571, Earth. The first two books detailing
construction rationale and technique are ISBN 0-9626767-0-5 and
-1-3 respectively. Anyone disgusted by the inefficiency
of modern shelter construction is URGED to read these books.
Build with something garages will PAY you to haul away!
Allegra Sloman
_________________________________________________________________
AN EXERCISE IN FEAR
Your eyes fell shut
Like birds who crashed out of the sky
They have holes in their useless wings
Holes in the second hand clothing
That gathers dust in the basement of your fear.
Your soul was washed up
Like jellyfish on the shore
Or the boats of lovers
Who clung to each other while they drowned
Martyrs for your fear.
Your ashes were blown apart
Like travellers who parted ways
Fate wished that they met
Luckless patterns in plaid
Pointless because of your fear.
Ayli Lapkoff
________________________________________________________________
DECISIONS
The philosophical daffodils
Implore me with shadowy eyes
To learn to read the river's mind
The candle burns upside down
Stand on your head
The words on the page merge into oblivion
The clock's hands turn backwards
Chekov, the Pope, Sacrates and Monet
Lie interwoven in my skin
The spider's web will catch the spider
My integrity lies bloodied and mangled
Like the corpse of my great great grandfather
In the wheat field behind my house
Turn the other cheek?
Ayli Lapkoff
_______________________________________________________________
_from_ MACHINE LANGUAGE
I would perpetuate this myth. The metanymph
by the tousled waterfall, weeping. While
calm beyond her soundshell, bees and breezes
drowse, dappled with laughter. Paradoxical
sleep beneath so many eyelids. Caterpillar
dream in which we participate. Our paradigm
poised upon an improbable joy, nimble wisdom
hidden in the phenomena. Echoes through
the gene-pool. Water ponders over stone,
dopplers into day. Radiant agency of flesh,
flowers. This consensual apparition glistens
in the polarized air.