Jim Andrews
Since the beginning
Works in Victoria Canada

ARTBASE (2)
BIO
Jim Andrews does http://vispo.com . He is a poet-programmer and audio guy. His work explores the new media possibilities of poetry, and seeks to synthesize the poetical with other arts and media.
Discussions (847) Opportunities (2) Events (14) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: FW: Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior


out of curiosity, i searched the web for reports similar to the one you
posted about bush on anti-depressants.

i don't see any similar reports, lee.

Also, the article says

"Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an anti-Bush propaganda, the
reports were later confirmed by prominent George Washington University
psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind
of the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the President as a 'paranoid
meglomaniac

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Re: 9 out of 10 muslim anarchists agree...


> c.c:
> i'd make a distinction. nobody ever thought they were going to
> upload their soul into a book.

why do artists care about what happens to their work after they die? of
course they don't care after they die. but before. is it that they care
about the betterment of humanity or their own life after death? they want
their silent running soul devices to keep running. but why?

the book was always a sign
> pointing to an extra-textual place of spiritual transcendence.
> (whether that extra-textual place actually exists or not is an
> ontological question.) but these days some folks think the
> network is itself a place of "actual" spiritual transcendence.
> like the sign to mt. rushmore = mt. rushmore. like going to a
> restaurant and eating the menu.

there are literalists in anything people believe. in religion and other
stuff.

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"
Browning

ja

DISCUSSION

Material Combinatorium Supremum


Material Combinatorium Supremum"
http://vispo.com/StirFryTexts/combinatorium.html

From the essay:

"Joshua Honigwach's site contains an amusing, concise argument purporting to
bound below and above the number of atoms in the universe. It is an
interesting read, but allow me to summarize: Honigwach bounds it below at
10^78 and above with 10^81.

If if if if if if if if if if if if if if if then (else as many) (end if as
many).

Amusing all the same.

Let us ascribe to 10^81 the term, today, anyway, of 'material combinatorium
supremum'.

Thus, for the monstrous poet, there is also an upper bound to be attained in
the exacerbation of poetry's suffering.

A text that is capable of transforming into 10^81 different texts suffers a
mind-bending combinatorium of textuality. It pushes poetry to the edge of
the material universe's fundamental mass.

Could it mean anything?

What does it mean?????

How to make such a text?

A stir fry can do it. Stir Frys are capable of unusually high combinatorial
complexity..."

ja

DISCUSSION

"Digital Writing Circa 2004"


Digital Writing Circa 2004"
http://vispo.com/writings/essays/DigitalWritingCirca2004.pdf (139 kb)

This is an attempt to say something about digital writing in the current
social and political context (and with reference to wider contexts).

It was written as a talk for the trAce symposium on "Writing and the
Internet" earlier in July.

By the time the symposium roled around, I actually had some new hypermedia
cooking ("War Pigs", still not finished), so I showed the hypermedia and
distributed print copies of the essay for people to read at their leisure.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: jargon


> yeah, well, ja...mostly i agree with you about clarity in language...
> except that i am conflicted...
> what actually is "honest writing and utterance"?

good question. when a lying dickhead like ronald reagan is/was known as 'the
great communicator', the notion of honest writing and utterance would seem
to be almost a lost concept.

> are we retreating to
> socialist realism? isn't abstraction in language as viable as abstraction
> in painting? adorno supported difficult writing as kinda a filter
> to winnow
> out those without sincere commitment to the effort of thought. clarity
> often comes at a price. and who's being "honest" about what?

i agree that 'difficult' writing is sometimes 'difficult' for valid reasons.
reading mathematics has always been a challenge to me. mostly because the
language is difficult. it is difficult out of a need for precision (as is
the language of the law, for instance). the ideas themselves are actually
quite simple when you can penetrate (which usually involves anticipating)
the language. the ideas of mathematics are much simpler ideas than those in
many another field because the types of entities under consideration and the
relations between them are relatively few in number and qualitative matters
are not a concern. but the language is very hard to grapple with. it is
possible to reduce this difficulty somewhat by resorting to
pictures/graphics. but they are necessarily particular and do not convey the
full generality of the ideas, ie, language is capable of a level and
precision of generality that the realm of images is simply incapable of. an
image presents a particular case.

i can't support the notion of difficult writing as simply a filter, however,
to keep out those who don't want to work for it. if the ideas are
interesting and consequential and general enough, that will generate
sufficient difficulty for both the writer and the reader without
manufacturing a surplus of difficulty to simply keep out the dullards. also,
it would seem that rather than keeping the dullards out, they are perfectly
capable of vacuously difficult writing themselves. Cogent reasoning and
lively writing is its own filter. but neither can i support writing which
tries to keep people out. i thought the idea was to write to communicate
with others.

poetry is sometimes 'difficult' also. for various valid reasons. for
instance, it often counts on others 'filling in the gaps' according to their
own experience and understanding. it isn't possible to hand someone an
experience of the beautiful 'on a platter'. but such writing is different in
its intent than argumentative writing. poetry usually is not attempting to
reason its way to conclusions.

so of course i have no objection to 'difficult' writing as long as it is
difficult for rewarding reasons.

> ain't nothin'
> said what does not have an interior presupposition or two...that is, an
> angle...a desire to sell.

mightn't supposing that 'everything said' has 'a desire to sell' be a
peculiarly 'american' way of looking at things?

i worked in the usa for four years (i'm canadian) as a technical writer. one
time a manager asked me to write some slippery public relations stuff. i
finally told him as matter-of-factly as i could (which i think ended up
sounding frosty) that i wasn't a salesman. he paused and looked at me with
an expression that combined annoyance, as much managerial authority as he
could muster, and a certain dumbfounded surprise. 'you don't understand,' he
said, 'everyone is a salesman here.'

whether 'here' meant the company or something larger was not clear. it was
one of those oddly existentialR moments.

ja