Alan Sondheim
Alan Sondheim's books include the anthology Being on Line: Net Subjecti vity (Lusitania, 1996), Disorders of the Real (Station Hill, 1988), and .echo (alt-X digital arts, 2002) as well as numerous other chapbooks, books and articles. His videos and films have been shown internationally. Sondheim co-moderates several email lists, including Cybermind, Cybercul ture, and Wryting. For the past several years, he has been working on an "Internet Text," a continuous meditation on philosophy, psychology, lang uage, body, sexuality, and virtuality. Sondheim lives in Brooklyn; he lectures and publishes widely on contemporary art and Internet issues. In 1999, Sondheim was the second virtual writer-in-residence for the trAce (sic) online writing community, originating in Nottingham, England. He is currently associate editor of the online magazine Beehive, and last year assembled a special topic for the America Book Review on codework. His video/soundwork has been recently screened at Millennium Film (NYC), as well as a number of universities and other venues. Sondheim teaches in the trAce online writing program, and last year was at Florida International University in Miami. He currently works in video, cdrom, performance, sound, and text, often in collaboration with his partner, Azure Carter, and others.
Relevant URLS:
Work at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt Older at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm Also: http://www.furtherfield.org/asondheim/ CDROMs of collected work 1994-2002 available: write sondheim@panix.com
Sondheim may be reached at sondheim@panix.com.
third sex
he had these dreams where he would lay naked with the hogs. he wouldn't tell anyone about them. hed hold the door of the pen open wide. the scuffling sounded like his body. he could feel blank eyes staring at him. he was on his back was lower than they were. hed hear their snuffling in his dreams. hed wake up with his fingers in him imagining. he never knew what a dream was. once there was no once. he dreamed that it stayed like his cousin stayed. she was thirteen and she stayed. he said to himself was used to it.
the pen was near the flat joint to the hill. they grew peaches up there and he would open his mouth wide on the trees. he could never open it wide enough. his tongue would crawl with it.
there was a stream and he thought there might be something to wash off but there wasnt.
she lay down in the water with her white dress on.
she lay down in the water with her thin white dress on.
she could see through the sweet dress.
she thought of bees humming all around, she thought about flowers.
she made a vow made the solemnest vow ever.
she closed her eyes and saw through her bones and there were eyes through
her bones.
once there was no one.
piss
if i were to tell you any more about cumberland it would be a story, wouldnt it. and thats not what it was at all, not even lived or this and that happened although they all did. cause what i want to tell you is the way the words held back, something different, the way there would be consideration. it would always be there, the slow talk burning its way into the woods, cutting paths, traces, making lazy words in the landscape like the smoke rising in the winter holler. all this in spite of the telephone which doesnt reach or the tv which does.
shed hang in there with her wet pants only her wet pants on. the sun would
be silver in the folds. like a silver dagger i heard about. all day long, that silver dagger. all day long.
shed lie back and piss in them, flood herself out. the piss would leak onto the boards of the porch down through the cracks. it would leak into the dark shadowed earth, the earth which rustled at night, lay supine, fertile in the hours of the day. hed hold his breath he would. if he were to tell you a story it would be that he held his breath like that. as if there were a happening where there weren't none. that he had the silver with him all his short short life. that there was coin after all.
Heidegger
I'd rather be beautiful rather than nothing.
Nikuko
Nikuko dead-girl down the streets, wearing her fast-and-hard boots.
Nikuko turned towards the edge by the fly-girl snack-bars.
Nikuko breathless, speaking into cellular, moshi moshi.
Nikuko past Kon's place towards Kiro's place past Anne's.
Nikuko carrying dead-girl news.
Nikuko with that umbrella fending off the spitting rain.
Nikuko black-haired, miniskirt and poke-mon furry changepurse.
Nikuko dead-girl moshi moshi.
Nikuko are you there dead-girl hello hello are you there.
Nikuko turned to the right down near Ohori-Koen.
Nikuko across Ohori-Koen, bridged the pond on the stone-bridge.
Nikuko stone-bridge I can hear you now, hear you now.
Nikuko Delicious Hip on the walkman, striding two-and-one.
Nikuko dead-girl, yeah, HAI HAI!
Nikuko dead-girl, yeah, HAI HAI! moshi moshi MOSHI!
Nikuko dropped-line, silent, turning Japanese, I really think so.
Nikuko dragged cig flicked off stoned-bridge, running under torii.
Nikuko dead-girl breathing hard.
Nikuko I'd rather be alive than dead-girl!
Nikuko dead-girl the hell with all of this!
Nikuko flesh-girl at war with big-eyes dead-girl.
Nikuko thinking stoned hard-core dead-girl at the corner of the world.
Nikuko dead-girl world comes and folds her in.
Nikuko world folds tighter than non-being, Nikuko dead-girl-drug.
Nikuko Nakasu girl dead-girl Nakasu HELLO! HELLO! MOSHI! MOSHI!
Nikuko: "I'd rather be alive than dead-girl!"
Nikuko: "I'd rather be alive!"
My Mythology, by Nikuko
The earth was formed from a swelling that began out of a primordial germ and split, separating dust from effluvia, debris from stony veins. From this, the kami emerged. Soon veins formed head-bands, emptied of swollen lungs and brains. Some kami committed seppuku, removing their tongues by means of pinchers forged from stony veins. Thus were formed brains with their many channels of mizu. Ah, lovely mizu! Transparent mizu! Tasteless mizu! Channels of mizu run down tiny brain-cunts in skulls formed from stony veins. Thus were formed "chan nels." Inkan stamp the elbows of kami-heads; the stamps cry "Oh Holy Mother Let Us Have Necks And Shoulders." Thus did necks and shoulders form. Some kami have arms on shoulders on necks on heads. They are meat-girls, Nikukos swelling into split germs and stony veins. They are angry girls! They are Buffalo Daughter, whose New Rock release is on Toshiba-EMI Limited, a blend of techno and industrial voice-over somewhat reminiscent of Big Stick, first heard at Rhino Records in Los Angeles (as usual, their lead singer died). Buffalo Daughter appears courtesy of Chameleon Records in Fukuoka, punk-animals everywhere or rather can you dance as the voice goes _way behind_ the back-beat. Meanwhile, in the Nihongi, Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto say "Why should we not produce someone who shall be lord of the universe?" - an off-handed remark leading to much future woe. One can only imag ine. "Universe" is given as "tenka" in a footnote, now meaning "the whole country; the public; the reins of government." Either a bring down (EFL students wa take-note of the idiom) or hubris, from The New Crown Japanese-English Dictionary. What happens in the tenka? I don't know, but return to Nikuko's story, for her promising anger which spread like a virus from Nikukos-coalescing with trunks and legs, breasts and wombs, fierce warriors who have heard of Greece and Mon ique Wittig. They come across a hermit in a cave, another kami in disguise, since there are Nikukos-One and kami, and that's all. They show him their cunts, ask for sake; they drink much, push the stick through his cloth, and that is all there is to it. Shite, lead char acter in a Noh play, he begins to sing, Wa! (Harmony!) Waa! (Hurray!) He's _it,_ goaded by the _waki,_ Nikuko-who-does-not-wear-a-mask. Wa! Waa! Yugen, mystery-depth-profound-subtle-aesthetic, emerges among the kami, a beat magazine in New York 1950s, edited by Leroi Jones, if memory serves me. "It runs fine when I'm here," sing Buffalo Daughter, thinking of Nikuko. Shite-hermit sings and sings, stick poking through. Thus was born "song," "Noh," and "penis." In revenge, Shite- hermit says, "Nikuko, you cannot be in Noh." No-Noh-Nikuko. She sews him back up in the cave. (Was he sewn at first? Whose cave? Was that Nikuko's? Nikuko's cave - thus was born possession. Buffalo Daughter change to swing-beat. The synthesizers wind down. Anyway, they make the Sun-Goddess, called Oho-hiru-me no muchi, although Ama-terasu no Oho kami and Ama-terasu-oho-hiru-me no Mikoto are cited as well. Ni kuko takes pity; the earth is kami, too. So are Buffalo Daughter, who are auspicious; the hermit, who receives the penis; the waki, helping everyone. Now everyone has all limbs and bodies but the penises and wombs are equally divided. When a war comes, Nikuko-who-does-not-wear- a-mask, and is a dark-haired girl living near Nakasu, gets angry, and says, there is no kami for any of us, and there are many less penises perhaps at first, and then less wombs. When the earth swells, there is an earthquake and caves are swallowed in the earth. Sesshu's Long Landscape Scroll portrays this incident of Nikuko and hermit, and, as if in despair and irony, there is earthquake also, destroying the earth shrine at Hakata, until its memory faded from the affairs of men and women. (Some men and women are born without arms or legs; some without brains; some without breasts or wombs; some without penises; some without heads; some without skulls or necks; and some without shoulders.)
Mizu, water; Nikuko, meat-girl; seppuku, suicide; shite, hero or hero ine in Noh play, primary actor (wears a mask); waki, secondary actor, maskless) in the same; Buffalo Daughter, playing now; kami, deity/ spirit of sorts; inkan, signature-stamp; Sesshu painted primarily in the 15th century; head-bands are often worn by workmen in Japan; Rhi no Records was (and maybe is) the best alternative music store I've seen in America. The last copy of Yugen was going for $10 a few months ago on the Lower East Side. Big Stick has disbanded. The Sun-Goddess names are from Aston's translation of the Nihongi. Monique Wittig wrote The Lesbian Body among other works. Nakasu is the snack-bar district of Fukuoka. Noh is a form of Japanese medieval theater; there are translations by Waley, but the intensity of tele vised Noh was completely unexpected. I live in Hakata-Ku, Hakata Ward, which is the merchant's town of Fukuoka. I have no brain or skull. Aston translates the Sun-Goddess' names as "Great-noon-female-of-pos- sessor"; "Heaven-illumine-of-great-deity"; and "Heaven-illumine-great- noon-female-of-augustness"; but then Aston was writing in the nine teenth century.