                                       _____________________________________
                                      |                                     |
                                      | I've got just four words to say to  |
                                      | those who are [dissing] Jagwire X's |
                                      | Autopia Project :                   |
                                      |                                     |
                                      | "Get Your Own Boat"                 |
                                      |                          -- polekat |
                                      |_____________________________________|


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                             Talking Raven Re:view

                               December 16, 1992

                     "Take all you want....I'll make more"
  __________________________________________________________________________
 |                                                                          |
 | Cyberlicious <tm> |    Editor : Blade X       |  The Bamboo Gardens      |
 | PO Box 4510       | bladex@wixer.cactus.org   |  (512) 385-2941          |
 | Austin, TX 78765  |  Neo-Wobblie Node # 269   |  WWIV : 46@5285          |
 |__________________________________________________________________________|

                                   EDIBORIAL

This was supposed to be a simple letter to the Scream Baby subscribers.

Hi!  I'm going to Yew*stun for Xmas Con this weekend...
Let's do launch if our spheres collide;
                                       was all this needed to be.

Maybe toss in an interesting line noise or two.

Perhaps a brief eulogy for my friend Sandeep.  Seems he was hiking in New
Mexico and was excited about seeing snow for the fourth time in his life.
[Sandeep was from India]  He ran ahead of his group, got separated, got lost,
and died of hypothermia that night.

To put it in perspective, re:alize that Sandeep contracted a rare neurological
disorder six months ago.  He woke up not being able to feel or move his legs,
the victim of a mystery-to-medicine.  Being in New Mexico was a celebration of
months of successful rehabilitation.

People die every day.

You will die someday soon                          sorry to spoil the secret.

But dying out of excitement to explore the universe......it could be worse.
Walk it like ya talk it.  Thanx for the lesson, Sandeep.

                                       ____________________________________
                                      |                                    |
                                      | It could have been "Walter" Gibson |
                                      |                                    |
                                      |                           -- Paco  |
                                      |____________________________________|


                                 TALKING RAVEN
                      THE JOURNAL OF IMAGINATIVE TROUBLE

Talking Raven : The Journal of Imaginative Trouble Vol II, #1 Summer Solstice
1992.  Distributed free on the streets of Seattle.  By snailmail $2 USD in
America, $5 USD anyplace else.

The theme of this issue is "Virtual Reality : Close But No Cigar." Editor
Antero Alli claims this to be "our cyberpunk satire, a rebellion against
those simulated realities and media illusions which....fail to move the
imagination."

If satire is what Talking Raven sought, then consider this issue a miserable
failure.  This satire issue is super-charged concentrate; Antero Alli's
writings reveal a Prime A Grade Cyberpunk.

"From the Editor's Monitor" rants about virtual reality (more on that later)
and ends with an advocation to "Turn off the TV and make your own movies"

People seizing methods of producing mass media for themselves?  A call to
"turn off the TV and make your own movies....shoot the news or make the
news....but get out there and DO SOMETHING"?

                             Nope, not cyberpunk!

Another article explores the connections between advertising and black
magic(k).  Sean Kilpatrick explains how television commercials use the same
methods that Aleister Crowley's espoused concerning the shaping of Will
(re:ality).  Antero Alli pops up again with an essay on "How To See Through
Advertising"

Television as a major form of thought control?  Arming the viewer with
knowledge in order to defend against the influence of advertising?

                             Nope, not cyberpunk!

The re-structuring of economic value from product to information?

                             Nope, not cyberpunk!


This isn't a satire; this is pure, unexpurgated cyberpunk.  It ain't perfect,
just damn interesting.

The knock against virtual reality essentially claims that VR ain't cyberpunk
*enough*.  One of the identifying characteristics of New Edge technology is
individual personal control.  How many of you can program a virtual reality
environment?  How many of you think you'll be able to do so in less than 20
years?

Not I.

Sure, nickel and dime stuff, but there is such a wide chasm between
possibility and plausibility that I'll look for other ledges to leap.  For all
the rhetoric on individual emancipation, for all the rhetoric on DIY, 99% of
the population will be plugging in pre-prepared Babbage's bubble shrink wrap
slag.

A rail against the commodification of cyberspace?

                             Nope, not cyberpunk!

                              -- end of review --
                ______________________________________________
               |                                              |
               | There are some who still believe in reality. |
               |             Believe in re:ality.             |
               |______________________________________________|


                          -- beginning of re:view --
                         ____________________________
                        |                            |
                        | Re:ality is the sum of the |
                        |     spheres of reality.    |
                        |____________________________|

The history of humanity is the clan/family.  Individuals had little
contact with other realities -- and cultural exchange was more likely to
involve weapons of destruction than literature when one walked into the walls
of a different reality tunnel.

Today we are flooded.

Not satisfied with a single perspective, thought, belief, and culture,
communication technology strives to represent the realities of every single
human on the planet.  No corner of the globe too distant to explore, no ugly
seam at home too disturbing to ignore.

Integrate all these realities or go crazy, is what mass media structure
dictates.
                              _____________________
                             |                     |
                             | Choose Pandemonium  |----->-----
                             |_____________________|          |
                                                              |
                                                              |
Join the concrete culture or die is the memetic threat.       |
                                                              |
                                _______________               |
                               |               |              |
                ---------<---- |  Choose Life  | <-------<----
                |              |_______________|
                |
People like Pat |obertson and Pat Buchanan try to cram a fractured world into
a single, monoli|hic reality.  That they think this possible is why we should
laugh.          |     ________________________________
                |    |                                |
                 --> |  Not for any political content |
                     |________________________________|

A rite of passage for every political-cultural-activist is to bemoan how
a certain media outlet does not correspond with reality.  Conservatives
about the liberal bias of reporters and the existence of Public Television.
Liberals about the domination of conservative corporate culture on newspapers.
Union members about the absence of perspectives on labor relations.  Feminists
about the number of bimbos.  Afrikan-Americans about the preponderance of
members of their race who are shown not as successful professionals, but drug-
dealing uneducated criminals.  Christians about the lack of people seen on
television who go to church, pray, or display any religious beliefs whatsoever
despite the enormous wide-spread popular practice of "going to church." Let me
stop before I fill someone's message buffer.  All groups end with a single
rallying battle cry.

       _________________________________________________________________
      |                                                                 |
      | There are not enough positive role models for ________________. |
      |                                                                 |
      |_________________________________________________________________|


Look on page 3 of Beat Scene magazine, Issue 14.

              [Single copies $8 for US/Japan/Australia, 2.30 pounds UK, 3
              pounds Eire; 4 issues are $28 US, 8 pounds UK, 10 pounds Eire
              from 27 Court Leet, Binley Woods Nr Coventry CV3 2JQ, Warks
              England Tel (voice) 0203-543604]

Beat Scene is a British zine about "getting hep with William Burroughs, Jack
Kerouac, Charles Bukowsky...  Allen Ginsberg....Desolation Angels everywhere"
It's slogan is "definitely here to go."  Look at the rest of zine later, for
now concentrate on page 3.  Look at the review of Apocalypse, which is a
collaboration between William S. Burroughs and the late graphic artist Keith
Haring.

                          [Wait.......did you not bring your text[s] to class?
                           It was on the syllabus............let me sigmasize]

Burroughs equates Pan with the belief that all experience is equally real. In
Pandemonium, there is no distinction between the reality found in [meat]
reality or the reality found in dream, fantasy, or [tele-]visions.  The birth
of Christ was the death of Pan, contends Burroughs, but Pan returned to the
world with the creation of modern art.

Illusion?  Reality?  Does it matter?

And that final question tore the fabric of reality.  Pandemonium broke out.
Cities are attacked by graffiti artists.  Household appliances revolt.
Everything goes crazy.  The world spills.

Now I'm not one to quibble with WSB nor question the origin of Pan's
resurrection.  My simple and humble exposition is that if Duchamp opened the
gates which allowed Pandemonium to return then communications technology
placed it in the Life of every human on the planet.  Without mass media,
Duchamp was just some guy puttering in his basement.

                            A New Edge Affirmation
                     ____________________________________
                    |                                    |
                    |   I control the frequency          |
                    |                                    |
                    |   I control the horizontal         |
                    |                                    |
                    |   I control the vertical           |
                    |                                    |
                    |   Do not attempt to adjust my set  |
                    |____________________________________|

                Let me try to tie everything mentioned so far:
                      ___________________________________
                     |                                   |
                     |  In cyberspace you are the media  |
                     |___________________________________|

                            -- close of re:view --                     | Choose Pandemonium  |----->-----



