Our Third Official Contributing Editor: Neil by risa
(i asked the editors for a piece of writing from them and an image or two and this is what neil sent me. if you get lost during neil’s bashful mini bio, skip ahead to the quote he chose to include. the juxtaposition of ideas made me smile, maybe it’ll give you a buzz too. peace. r.)
Neil:
In desiring some things to adhere to me: summation (with associated
words and diagrams), or the art of the elegant ergonomic shortcut,
(il)legible for you, I plead lame and guilty (that blockage on which we
thrive) and offer with the hope of any and all that I become what I
attempt to do. Be generous as I stand on the shoulders of one lumbering
giant and proceed to slide down his slippery back…
Remember, freedom is a relation.
“There are, you see, two ways of reading a book: you either see it as a box with something inside and start looking for what it signifies, and then if you’re even more perverse or depraved you set off after signifiers. And you treat the next book like a box contained in the first or containing it. And you annotate and interpret and question, and write a book about the book, and so on and on. Or there’s the other way: you see the book as a little non-signifying machine and the only question is “Does it work, and how does it work?’ How does it work for you? If it doesn’t work, if nothing comes through, you try another
book. This second way of reading is intensive: something comes through or it doesn’t. There’s nothing to explain, nothing to understand, nothing to interpret. It’s like plugging in to an electric circuit.”
Gilles Deleuze, Letter to a Harsh Critic, 1977
(naively cited, mired, and admired)
“neil in turkey”, natalie kallio
“exmpire ii”, andrew zbihlyj
“collaborators”, margaux williamson
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:14 pm
rr, love the photo. at a mistaken glance, it’s like paul simon does bosnia. oh yeah, and i can confirm your outlet is live.
c
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
the paul simon in my player i dedicate to you:
“Peace like a river ran through the city
Long past the midnight curfew
We sat starry-eyed
We were satisfied
And I remember
Misinformation followed us like a plague
Nobody knew from time to time
If the plans were changed
If the plans were changed.
You can beat us with wires
You can beat us with chains
You can run out your rules
But you know you can’t outrun the history train
I’ve seen a glorious day.
Four in the morning
I woke up from out of my dreams
Nowhere to go but back to sleep
But I’m reconciled
Oh, oh, oh, I’m going to be up for awhile”
such a perfect little story he tells. i find it completely haunting.
re: making sure your output shows up
or
why some comments get sent to moderation:
there are buzz words that are frequently used in spammy advertizing. the website software we use (wordpress) tests comments against a list of these words before deciding whether or not to send them to moderation. If they go to moderation they’re emailed to me and then i click “post” or “delete.” i delete a few ads for phetermine every day.
moderation is like one of those “arms control treaties” heath and potter (authors of rebel sell) describe (mini review). we give up certain freedoms to keep the blogging ecosystem healthy, but the freedoms we give up are balanced out by the fact that you could start your own blog and not moderate it. or set your system to do a completely different thing. you’d hafta learn the code, or hire someone who’s more into code then you; but if they needed to hire you to do something they that weren’t good at then you’d have another nice balance set up. this is why webprogrammers are working on projects like favorville and billmonk. (and is sort of related to indyish.)
p.s. my favorite line in that paul simon song (which is called peace like a river, btw) is : “you can’t outrun the history train.”