“The Jews,” said Mengele.
He snapped the doktor’s neck. The corpse burst into thin gray flakes and caved into an air pocket . . .
“. . . I stood beside the bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands . . . Beauty and the Beast . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . . Brook’n Bridge . . .”
Then, hunched over a desk, I extracted an implant from the small of my neck. Using duct tape, industrial twine, and ionized copper flanges, I had arranged a series of three rearview mirrors in such a way that I could monitor the operation. The implant looked and felt like a segment of barbwire. It had been wrapped around the cerebellum and the medulla, squeezing the units together. My vision flickered as valuable brain tissue frayed and shredded. A warm fluid issued from the wound and trickled down the skin of my back. There was a dull sonic hum. I cleaned the implant with a toothbrush and placed it on the desktop. It looked like seaweed. It glowed. I picked up the implant and turned it over in my hands, searching for distinctive marks or insignia. I couldn’t find any. I used a magnifying glass, an electron microscope. Nothing. At last I examined the implant with a soulfinder capable of detecting spiritual bodies in inanimate objects. I found a spirit—a blob of tissue, sallow and veined and amorphous. Something had been tattooed onto its hide. This:
山
I deduced the cipher’s meaning and purpose, then second-guessed my conclusions. I rethought the matter and overturned conflicting results that I summarily flouted and overturned again. Subtitles flared onto the mindscreen. I couldn’t remember where I had read them. I spoke them aloud:
“The mountain . . . is a symbol.”
I decided that the cipher was some kind of superhero icon. The decision nearly mirrored my initial hermeneutic, but not without significant différence, rendering it unique and singular, the very antithesis of a reflection, vague or otherwise. I stood and went to the bathroom to take my medication and dress the wound, hoping I would remain in the present, at least until I had stopped the bleeding. It felt as if my brain had leaked out. Memories escaped me like exhaust fumes. Must regain control. I breathed deeply, evenly, and articulated my mantra. Ohhm. Zhhh. Avoid history at all costs. Sssss. Deflect the future via orchestral maneuvers in the dark. Haaaaaa. Float like a bee, sting like a butterfly . . .
THE 7000TH TIME I TURNED INTO KYOTO
SOUND & FURY DISABLED REMIX
one minute she was standing there the next he was yelling & pulling at her dress
strangebrew from man into monster
I accidentally ingest a photograph & the photograph (en)frames me like a polaroid
at first I think its athletes foot but its metromorphia
the neon stalks exacerbate my condition
ira überstein rules the world
nobody can stop him
power emanates most effektively from indefatigable orifices & I have only seen überstein once in real life
he recurs in my antidreams & greases the engine of the nightmare of reality
now the chorus:
jigsaw city & the rot of scag media
kisses the future, stings like pangea
gonna git high, gonna dance all nite
gonna hack off the sky with my razorsharp kite
her face looked at the sky it was low so low that all smells & sounds of night seemed to have been crowded down like under a slack tent
in “the metropolis & mental life” georg simmel inscribes: “the deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy & individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, & of the technique of life.” simmel takes a drag from a cigarette. “the psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift & uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli. man is a differentiating creature. his mind is stimulated by the difference between a momentary impression & the one which preceded it. lasting impressions, impressions which differ only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular & habitual course & show regular & habitual contrasts—all these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, & the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions.” another drag. “these are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates.”
the city in question is a grannysknot of broken circuits.
the city in fritz langs film metropolis is made of cardboard. the aerial shots are cartoons.
the city in blade runner is a miniaturized reproduction of an extrapolated los angeles (trans. lost angles).
the city in every noir film is the same city. dark & sharp. thin smirks of light.
the city of liverpool is an ode to the beatles to the titanic to workingclass despair. a stoic cathedral rises from its highest summit. graveyard in the backyard.
winter. devotchkas in colorful lingerie & makeup stroll up & down the icy sidewalks searching for viable discotheques & fish & chip shops. I can see them from the tall window.
totem poles of department stores & restaurants & gentlemans clubs. the whiteness of the whale. vancouver.
Im finagling her asterisk. Im in the crowsnest.
the flying island-city of laputa hovers over the ground-city of lagado. everyone can hear the flappers whipping the laputians & preserving mnemonic order.
hong kong is an island city of the future beneath which swim the dragondolas of history. I remember the commute from kowloon. mirrored buildings. blue sky. I smelled flowers & fish.
see meditation xvii. & yet.
chorus
she looked at me then everything emptied out of her eyes & they looked like the eyes in statues blank & unseeing & serene
the sky the surf the wind in my hair
infinite & spontaneous roots of evil complement sudden eruptions of ultraviolence e.g. fireballs explode from quiet flesh e.g. tentacles explode from quiet flesh e.g. imperial palaces explode from quiet flesh
from space earth looks like a decayed apple lodged between the segments of a scorched vermin oppressed by a bearded patriarch hence infinite letters to the father
the lobsters stare out of the aquarium in polite agony
chorus
her blood surged steadily beating & beating against my hand
tcz
we all prefer chew-z to can-d
a noblemans private xanadu can be gleaned via the katsura detached palace with its cherry blossoms & tastefully situated rocks & long ago the kinkakuji temple of the golden pavilion served as a retirement villa for aged ninjas & etched into the stone torii gates of the yasaka-jinja yasaka shrine are rumors of utopia & maruyama park & kurodani temple a giant granite nephilim in the parking lot smiling like a buddha over a sea of toyotas mazdas hondas nissans subarus isuzus mitsubishis mad dash of nordic tourists my father took a picture of me at the foot of the nephilim I wore a black blazer & blue jeans with arms akimbo & I searched all day for a sake grenade I wasnt sure what kind I wanted but nothing felt right & then I found what I was looking for in a shop that had been made to look like a cave the unassuming porcelain grenade accompanied by two miniscule handmade cups & in the wake of my purchase the vendor urged me never to drink my sake cold
you may think Im disabled but I promise I will plagiarize again bootlegging the lesser gods
play it again “sam”
the sky the surf the wind in my hair
Im a secret agent & Im a superzero & I tell everyone my name
this is he 7000th time Ive turned into Kyoto
but in the end it doesnt ratiocinate
apathy spills into the gulag
no one eats breakfast on mercurial doomsday
because no one is home
writ de lunatico
Im a raging daikaiju & Im a fin de mundo tetsuo & I will turn this
fucking world to rust & I will roost upon the wasteland like a beakless chauntecleer despite the eternal rorschachs of dystrophy
chorus
chorus
chorus
THE 8193RD TIME I TURNED INTO KYOTO
DEAD AIR
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
It was not long after he had stood in the foyer of the social theater—the first televised newscast, in fact, set the wheel in motion—that a religious fervor overcame the population. It began with the lower classes, as is customary. Lack of funding exacerbates the fear of death. Or, as Karl Marx suggests in “The Poverty of Philosophy”: “From day to day it thus becomes clearer that the production relations in which the bourgeoisie moves have not a simple, uniform character, but a dual character; that in the selfsame relations in which wealth is produced, poverty is also produced; that in the selfsame relations in which there is a development of the productive forces, there is also a force producing repression; that these relations produce bourgeois wealth—i.e., the wealth of the bourgeois class—only by continually annihilating the wealth of the individual members of this class and by producing an ever-growing proletariat.” Thus are proles more inclined to inject the opiate of the masses, albeit yuppies inexorably follow in their train. They worshipped “Superzero,” as they deigned to call him—although others called him “Ur-Vishnu,” and “Overglyph,” and “Man Plus,” and “Proust’s Kraken,” and so on—with madcap piety, constructing idols of him in human and metropolitan forms. And the more damage he caused, the more adamantly the masses genuflected.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
If he is not God, they proclaim, then he is a superhero. The man to end all men. The destroyer of all men. Paradox of patriarchy. He possesses special abilities. If nothing else, he exhibits a psychic life of power. There is evidence. We can prove it. And if we can’t prove it, we can spin it.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
Considering the unwarranted value of his character, Ira Überstein doesn’t appear often enough in this book of lies and mindscapes. His spirit lurks behind every curtain, beneath every floorboard, perpetuating makeshift bushido dreams, but his presence is shockingly restricted, arguably neglected, if not forgotten. Unforgivable. And yet necessary. Puppeteers are puppeteers for a reason. To see the strings is only a misdemeanor. To see who pulls the strings is a felony punishable by immolation. The flames of reality lay down the law.
Additionally: more gun-fu.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
In the past and the future—ipso facto, the present doesn’t exist—speculation persists as to the correlation between the metromorph and TCZs. Which is the chicken? Which is the egg? A protectorate of Big Bang theorists have come dangerously close to unlocking this mystery. Drawing on the expertise of tornado hunters, they “captured” a “fragment” of a TCZ as it “rolled across the landscape” and “analyzed it under a microscope.” Significant turbulence marred the case study, rendering constants invariables and variables inconstant, hurling the theorists back and forth through Time and modes of fashion, and in general schizophrenizing their intellectual circuitry, powers of perception, and hermeneutics of suspicion. Nonetheless they drew some rudimentary conclusions. Above all, they detected traces of the metromorph’s DNA in the “feathery parts” of the sample TCZ. This caused an upheaval. How did the Big Bang theorists know what the metromorph’s DNA looked like? He had never been examined, as he had never been captured, and almost nobody could identify him; he could walk down a busy citystreet at high noon and ne’er a head would turn. The theorists proffered a “medicinal argument,” claiming they had “experienced” the man-city’s DNA in a collective, magic mushroom-induced hallucination. This didn’t go over well either. They changed their tune, assuring the global public that they did not do drugs and in fact were all “Born-Again Inviolates.” Blind Faith, not “some trippy shitstorm,” led them to their hypothesis. This carried more weight with the Human Stain, although history underwent constant revision, literally, and therefore the future always-already spiraled in multiple directions. Sometimes Blind Faith worked. Usually it generated incontinence.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
There is a rumor of his death. There is a rumor of his dismemberment. There is a rumor of his cremation, of his vaporization. Every rumor expels the same coda. The flakes of his flesh recompose into a molar dialectic . . . The sharp molecularization reverts, regresses, lapses into the city, and then he backtracks to human form, sans wounds, as perfect as any anthropomorph could hope to be, if only on a mindscreen. He can be killed but nobody can kill him.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
The Stix had their origins in Japanese yokai, shapeshifting goblins, daemons, specters, deities, ghosts, phantasms, and other monsters that formerly existed as literary, cultural and historical icons with sliding veneers of signification, but the birth of “poltergestalt,” a portmanteau technology that combined the machinery of haunting with the economics of flesh, saw the manifestation of yokai in the real world. Of course, they took over. All sentient organisms want to take over. During this period, reality flirted with the diegesis of a zombie film.
Nothing lasts forever. In spite of an eager penchant for self-destruction, the Human Stain can’t take a hint and won’t go away. In time, the yokai’s reign ended. The Stain rose against the enemy like a fleet of angry proles, executing them for “crimes against Bartleby.” Residual yokai became the subjects of mad scientism, a practice that mainly produced unfathomable pain and suffering (i.e., “retribution”), but also cures for cancer and AIDS, which, on some timelines, are currently available for purchase in over-the-counter capsule form (e.g., a bottle of 40 capsules at any Allpurpose Department Warehouse runs for the price of a 2000 square foot home in a prestigious westworld suburb, a remarkable value considering that two swallows per day for twenty consecutive days guarantees an end to the affliction in 82% of affected parties. The cure can be obtained in third world, arctic, and postapocalyptic outrézones for a tremendous discount. FINE PRINT: The chances of being killed and robbed immediately following purchase exceed 95%). The Stain genetically regressed other surviving yokai, devolved them into proto-life forms as punishment for their insurrection, while augmenting their intellects so that they could more effektively understand and experience the nature of their ruined existence, or, in Buddhist lingo, their dukkha. Hence the Stix. Making them smart was a dumb thing to do. But it wasn’t the first dumb thing the Stain had done, and it wouldn’t be the last.
The Stix realized that they could easily reroute the Stain’s aggression, and they rose against them like a fleet of angry proles . . .
On the ground, there were bloody, savage hand-to-hand skirmishes; in space, starships destroyed one another with doomsday machines and wavemotion guns. Once the Stain had been sufficiently enslaved, a Dark Age crippled the socius. Earth had never harbored more intelligent beings than the Stix, and the Stain knew it, and the Stain decided not to write anything down or even draw any pictures, reverting to a primitive culture of sheer oral transmission. Simple logic. Future generations and (d)evolutions did not deserve to know their business. Nobody could be smarter than the Stain—period. (NOTE: A similar outlook belonged to the modernists of the twentieth century, who dared to call themselves “modernists,” agreeing that nobody could or would be more modern than them.) And so they dispossessed their successors of a sense of history, and by the time their successors understood that they lived in a prison of ignorance, the Stain had rallied again. They obliterated the metaphysical anomalies. “Genocide is the best pesticide,” remarked the Stain.
Then the timecrashes began. Then the zoneshifts. Then a fusion of temporal and spatial malfunctions. We had no choice but to blame them on the Stix.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
TCZs no longer exist. One could make that argument and defend it with textual support, just as one could make the argument that reality is a myth, an illusion, the dream of a pathological android.
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br /> More likely, TCZs simply go unnoticed. The mind doesn’t work like it used to. Things change and yet things appear the same. Such ignorance mainly afflicts the few survivors that wander up and down the seashores of the future. Dazed. Schized. Fat and mad.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
In due course the pharmacists attempted to win. It had nothing to do with pills—wielding pills, dispensing pills, using pills as bait, etc. They simply made a collective decision. There were enough of them, by then, and they wreaked considerable havoc, mixing and matching prescriptions until their customers didn’t know tit from tat. Like all good autocracies, however, it came to a bitter and violent end, and for a while customers could not get their medication.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
In Bullitt (1968), Steve McQueen’s character drives a 1968 Mustang Fastback.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
This is an apocalyptic novel. This is an apoplectic novel, an anaphylactic novel. Nothing more—nothing less.
Infodump, or, Thy Piles
One of the wild theses in A Brief History of the Man-City is the unearthly conceit that the man-city occupies ubiquity, i.e., that he has actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at the same time. An even wilder thesis has to do with the differences between western and eastern cultures. According to the author of A Brief History, everybody knows that the man is a westerner. And yet that which he becomes is clearly an easterner. How, the author asks, do we account for this polarization? Is it a mere allegory for the banal clash of self vs. other? Or does the metromorphosis exhibit a deeper, meatier significance, one that reveals certain diagnostics of civilization? Either way, I expect the worst, and I hope for the best. I am serious. I am perpetually, incurably serious. People live and die and are forgotten. Hence the drama of human existence.
The Kyoto Man (The SciKungFi Trilogy) Page 10
