From tomj Fri Jul 16 18:16:51 1993 Received: by fido.wps.com (5.67/9999.1) id AA14201; Fri, 16 Jul 93 18:15:46 -0700 From: tomj (Tom Jennings) Message-Id: <9307170115.AA14201@wps.com> Subject: FWR #1 To: fringeware@wixer.bga.com Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 18:15:44 -0700 (PDT) Cc: tomj (Tom Jennings) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5477 Status: O (big sigh) OK WHERE WAS I -- I haven't written sooner not cuz I didn't care or whatever, but because I have this rule where, if there's something I like/want to do, I'll wait until I'm not in a panic, hurried, hassled or otherwise crazy. Otherwise I'll write, "umm yeah, that thing you did? It's pretty good" simply cuz I'll be to scattered. I have had a hell month. Where's this life I was promised?! I WANT A FULL REFUND! FWR is fucking *great*. It's within or overlapping the territory I oneday wanted to do (for years now) in a zine. But I'll never get around to it, especialyl now... I totally agree -- FUCK THE "FUTURE" -- what about today? re: Paco's path-o-logical rant. He/you talk around what I think is a central, defining difference -- the way you relate to what is currently around you, in broad terms -- Are we waiting around for a tomorrow that's always one day off, or living now, and today? Since it wasn't referenced explicitly (it was of course a short rant, as rants go :-), I wonder if Paco &c have yet stumbled onto Hakim Bey's rants on im-mediate-ism? For years, the split between "real life" as manifested in the world I was living in vs. my internal desire for some critical thing left me searching for words to even define it. All I knew was the there was something wrong or incomplete in the goings on around me that was not so much intentionally dishonest as incomplete out of ignorance. I knew that "I did not want to chose amongst the choices presented me". Hence I became a big dropout. The missing thing was what Hakim Bey calls "immediatism", his solution to the capitalist, mainstream dream/nightmare many call consensus reality, that promises the (always one day off) future, in exchange for your "today". The solution (not acceptable to many, alas) is to use your connectedness to everyday things, pleasures especially, as a sanity-check on what you're doing. In my case, it took completely dropping out of my fancy corporate/high-tech jobs, and giving up my decently-substantial income. I got lots in exchange, and 8 yrs later, no regrets, except that everytime I hesitated at something, I should have moved faster. Almost evrey time it involved "letting go" some damn thing like a job, habits, ideas, etc. It's worth reading his essays on. They're short and concise, and convey the ideas in few pages (a very good sign :-) Small criticism: in 'Cruzin the internet', last column, 1:12. "It does us no good to resent the mainstreamn. Rather we should welcome them with open arms. ..." Well, maybe into *your* livingroom, but not mine! I think it's a matter of degree, or similar construct -- access in general, yes, open the fucking floodgates. As fast as possible, and as wide as possible. However that doesn't mean we have to like them. Don't forget we're building access for the pigs, wannabe pigs, would-be fascists, etc too, quite explicitly, plus plain old idiots *I* don't want anything to do with. There's no paradox involved. It does require building WALLS as well as ROADS. I flatl refuse to entertain idiots at my expense. We can all have all of this, as it's not physical terrain we're talking. INSUFFICIENTLY-PARANOID DEP'T: "... in a community based upon nothing but language, the most potent -- and the most ATTRACTIVE -- ideas will be the ones to survive." Not only do I disagree, I think it's wrong -- in a community based upon , those with the most will survive, where X and Y are: X Y language fluency strength muscles ideas access The de facto language of the american part of the Internet, in which we mostly live, is quite literally based upon fluent college ENGLISH. You can't set this aside, it's critical. "In the future" this will lessen, ut never go away, and even if it did, TODAY we are building the infrastructure, the social and cultural base, upon which TOMORROWs nets will sit. As we all know, the more weirdos involved in that structure, the better. I think we are just beginning to see the corpserate types getting involved, and they are quite blatantly trying to CLEAN UP THIS INCORRIGABLE FUCKING MESS OF PERVERTS. Remember the old PRODIGY flap, where there was a mailing list that got killed by Prodigy because it was "inappropriate use of services" or some such? ALl our liberal press friends so very carefully excised out the fact that it was a discussion amongst openly LESBIAN AND GAY people that was closed down because of plain old bigotry. This doesn't get mentioned. I read it in a local gay paper, written by some of the people in the mialing list, about how they were treated. PRODIGY and all the corperate followers into "our" space are gonna clean it up for public consumption. They will, in fact, end up owning most of it, as they have for the last 1000 years. The goal for myself is to make places/tools that physically can't be compromised. I know I got long-winded here... andI have email messages > 25 lines (screenful). I'll stop now... :-) I hope it doesn't sound like more criticism than praise. There's so little worth reading, never mind arguing with! re weirdo cultural stuff. I'm still suspicious, and hope to always stay that way... :-) It's very, very high on my very, very short list of pubs I get! Next check I get, I'll mail in a subscription..! PS: Has anyone typed in the PGP message on the back cover? I'm far too lazy... -- Tom Jennings -- tomj@wps.com -- World Power Systems -- San Francisco, Calif.