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{108321}{108386}What does a scanner see?
{108390}{108439}Into the head?
{108449}{108505}Down into the heart?
{108516}{108599}Does it see into me, into us?
{108603}{108655}Clearly or darkly?
{108691}{108801}I hope it sees clearly, because|I can 't any longer see into myself.
{108811}{108861}I see only murk.
{108881}{108965}I hope for everyone's sake|the scanners do better.
{108976}{109071}Because if the scanner sees only darkly,|the way I do
{109075}{109175} then I'm cursed and cursed again.
{109179}{109249}And we'll only wind up dead this way
{109253}{109398}knowing very little and getting|that little fragment wrong too.

welcome to this special holiday edition of sub-space

wed like to welcome you folks to this special holiday edition of sub space live, so to speak, were still alive, from buddy's head. what do you say to the folks, buddy?
- welcome buddies! welcome and merry new year!
-thats right little buddy, new years is coming!
-bah humbug! as they say.
-come on buddy, tell us how you fell then, dont hold back.
-i feel like berlin in the eighties; i feel like a glass roof in a train station; i feel like a man!
-yeah! applause for buddy.......
-and i feel like dvds!
-oh, come on now buddy, easy up on the dvds...
-i feel like a tornado with no mother! a potato with no brother! a child with no game...
-wow! applause for buddy on this special edition of sub-space.....
-no! i feel like a wicked wicked tom cruise has done; i feel like bears in mini skirts eating honey to russian folk songs and dancing on their hands in late july when NOBODY should be eating honey! i feel like a miracle of modern science! long live the king! long live the king!

this bleak state of abandonment

and if life helps now and then with terrors that transcend the parrot-wisdom of banal experience, the the petty bourgeios mentality despairs.
candidate A despairs. we wont name his name, but we might be called upon to add that he hails from somewhere in the general direction of the antipodes. and as we said he despairs because he has no reason to say what he says nor believe what he believes. to be quite accessible: though he should say he believes in his cultures altruism he hates everyone and is nice only when in fear or awe. and in wardly he despairs.
candidate B also despairs. neither will we unmask his name, but we will note that judging from his speech he seems to be from the nearer corners of the european continent, possibly from the parts that speak a pure romantic tongue. and he despairs because to unfocus is to find hilarity and to focus is to find emptiness that needs filling and practice at a pursuit. in other words, that the cistern of his is empty at the moment and to focus is to start again from zero. it is a situation rife with despair.
and finally candidate C. does he despair? of course! but his situation is much closer to the one in which the patient tells the doctor he is sick. it does not mean he necessarily is. though to find he werent would be tantamount to despair. so naturally he is. and he is from nowhere.

The Delightful Irony of Metathinking

I have been struck down by a terrible malaise. I hesitate to mention it, lest I inflict it upon others - but these, I suspect, are my last few lucid thoughts. Let them be put down, let them become the kernel of human destruction.
As our metro screamed around the curve and pulled into Krasnopresnenskaya, I watched a filthy, brown-skinned wraith - perhaps she was babushka in years past - screaming obscenities at a businessman. He nodded and gave a weak smile, half-ingratiating and half-pleading. And I thought: 'What am I thinking about?'
And in Novoslobodskaya, I saw a young punk on his heels list over and sprawl across the stones, and I though: 'That's all well and good, but what am I thinking about?'
And on Marksistskaya ulitsa, I saw a car reverse into a woman and knock her to the ground with a crunch, and she let out a pitiful cry, and a man got out of the car and yelled abuse at her, but I had no time to be relieved when the militsiya pulled up - I was too busy thinking: 'Yes, what am I thinking about? What is it that I am thinking about?'
I probably have less than a day, and I will be completely mad, mind broken by this endless litany. And then! O then I will have surrendered control, and my thoughts will become separate from my mind, and never again shall they meet. And, of course, among the shattered remnants of my consciousness, it will be impossible to pose the question 'What am I thinking about?'
But I suppose that is the delightful irony of metathinking, is it not?

reply

my dearest son,
i very nearly wrote nose there, and not son, but you now, thats what age does to a mind, even a mind once sharp, once wickedly sharp, and once very very concerned.
how would you react if i were to say - it serves you right? would you think me very wicked(and not sharp at all)? because it pains me very much to say it, and it pains me even more to admit it is the only answer i can give you.
alas, that is a mothers lot, to raise wicked children, children who simply - can i say it - do not listen.
is it not true that in those years when all others had run past, in those difficult years when all the others had, if i can be so incredibly bold, forsaken you, when a mothers thankless job is at its most tiresome and wickedly thankless, i say, is it not true that even then, you began to show that wicked strain of hardheadedness - even now i want to justify you, after all it is a trait you inherited from your father - that has now, i can say with all certainty, been your downfall.
you cruel stupid man.
but even now, a mothers love is forever, my love does not wane, i find a wave of sympathy yet alive inside me; yes, what is there beside a mothers love? is it not true what they say - he has a face only a mother could love? and is it not true that one could say the same of not only your face - but your character too?! what a foul thing.
i cannot say more right now, i am afraid i am too full of bile and disgust and neither is sitting here to write you doing anything for my legs, i must get up and stretch them.
it serves you right.
your father says hello.
and dont forget to bring those plates you promised(though no doubt youve already forgotten, my wicked son)
love, your mother

Women who pass in the street

Dearest Varvara,
I am losing my humanity. Yesterday I saw an old woman sprawled in the snow. Thinking perhaps she was dead, I laughed. Then I thought maybe she was drunk, and I hated her. As I walked past, I shuffled some snow in her face, to see if the cold would awaken her, but she didn't move. A woman passing by saw me and began remonstrating. You see, Varvara, the woman was so cruel that she preferred to remonstrate with me than help the old woman. They have done it to me, these women who pass in the street. I returned later, to see if I still felt like laughing or hating or maybe even helping, but the old woman was gone. Just a filthy rag in the snow, and I was so disappointed that I wandered the backstreets looking for people to remonstrate with, but there were none to be found. In the end, I came across a haggard dog with cunning eyes, and ran at it, waving my arms and shouting, but it just sat and winked at me, and I felt so sorrowful that I sank to my knees and held it's stinking head against my own until it pulled out of my grasp and looked into my eyes and said: 'you are neither human nor dog' and vanished into the darkness and, Varvara, since then I cannot remember my name. What is it again? Do write soon and tell me, Varvara: it pains me greatly that I cannot sign this letter, even though I remain,
Your most loving and devoted son,