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Q: What is the symbolism of the lesbian agents with penises grafted onto their faces drinking spinal fluid?
Burroughs: Oh, just a bit of science fiction, really.
CYBER NOODLE SOUP NO. 9
CYBER NOODLE SOUP is published from time to time, usually whenever we have a couple of pages of material. For copies send an SASE or The Usual to: Clark PO Box 2761 St. Paul, MN 55102. Back issues are on the Net at www.teleport.com/~jaheriot/cns.htm
William S. Burroughs: SciFi book reviewer
WSB has always been claimed as a father of cyberpunk. Well, more the queer uncle actually. He's not typically thought to be a "science fiction" writer, perhaps because he's considered too serious to be a member of the ray guns and robots crowd by New York literary critics. But if Nova Express ain't SF I don't what else it could be. (The Brits have no problems with the idea; see below.) Burroughs himself didn't consider SF to be an inferior literature. He wrote it, read it and even, as you will read, reviewed it. The following is taken from the June 19, 1969 issue of Rat, a NY underground newspaper. Note that the copy editor or maybe the typesetter at Rat was pretty sloppy with the text, especially the use of quotation marks, so there is some ambiguity as to what actually printed here. Maybe they were in a hurry to get this issue out. And, yeah, they misspelled Burrough's name.
MIND PARASITES!
by william borroughs
The Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson
Panther Science Fiction 026983
"The human race is being attacked by a sort of mind cancer. Something is sucking the human mind dry and has been sucking it for the past two hundred years." That is the shattering discovery made by Professor Gilbert Austin. Who or what is responsible? Mind parasites, malignant beings who lurk in the deepest layers of the unconscious...(in precise physiological terms this would correspond to the back brain or hypothalamus)...sapping the very life force of mankind, cutting him off from his natural capacity for self renewal...It was all so unsettling that I broke the habit of a lifetime and drank a bottle of champagne at lunch time.
There is considerable inferential evidence to indicate the actual existence of such a parasitic instance as this book postulates. An Italian sociologist said if you want to get to the bottom of any situation that seems on the surface inexplicable ask yourself the simple question 'who profits?' Who would profit from blocking every basic discovery about the human mind? Techniques are now available to alter consciousness and effect the hypothalamus directly. In a recent Mayfair article I described the experiments of doctor Miller who has demonstrated that any mammal can learn to control such seemingly involuntary processes as brain waves, blood pressure, rate of heart beats, his whole state of mind and body. Doctor Miller had great difficulty in raising funds for his experiments. The importance of these experiments was completely missed by the press. The means are at hand to conquer inner space but they are not being used. Despite impressive technical advances the planet is still in the stone age psychologically. Who would profit from turning the clock all the way back to the stone age and keeping man out of space? A parasitic entity that lives in the human body and could not survive space. Only in the last two hundred years have technological advances made space exploration a possibility. By maintaining control of inner space the parasites can block any discovery or destroy anyone who suspects their existence. It is in fact unexplained suicides among scientists investigating inner space that leads to the discovery of the parasites by the narrator Professor Gilbert Austin. Once the presence of the parasites is inferred the means to combat them is obvious. They must be combated by the brain itself pushed up to and beyond its limits so that men can read each other's thoughts, control their own thoughts and feelings. So they join battle with the parasites on equal terms. These are precisely the measures I have advocated in the Academy Series, measures that must be applied whether we believe in mind parasites or not if man is to expand his horizons and survive in the space age. There is no turning back to the false security of dogmatic creeds. To travel in space
you must learn to leave the old verbal garbage behind: God talk, priest talk, mother talk, family talk, love talk, country talk, party talk. You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to see what is in front of you with no preconceptions.
In Mr. Wilson's narrative it is a space voyage that finally defeats the parasites. They cannot survive in space. As the space craft travels further and further from the earth the parasites, still lurking in the crew, are in a panic. "Now they felt their psychic links with the earth stretching and growing weaker and they were frightened. We now understood the nature of 'space fever' that had so far frustrated all men's efforts to penetrate further into space." Known, watched, the parasites became desperate. They now reveal themselves as creatures of a low intelligence floundering about like a beached squid. "It happened on the fourteenth day...Something infinitely evil and slimy was pushing its way from inside me. I realized I had been wrong to think of the parasites as separate beings. They were one, they were IT, an immense jelly like octopus whose tentacles are separate from its body and can move about like individuals." (And this being is none other than the ancient slug Abhoth the Dark also known as Abhoth the Unclean)... "Now this infinitely vile thing was coming out of its lair and I could feel it's hatred of me, a hatred so powerful and maniacal that it almost needs a new word. Then the inexpressible relief of knowing that it was gone..."
What has made this planet such a soft touch for Abhoth?... The greatest human limitation is that we are all tied to the present by an arbitrary identity, personal and national. What is identity? The identity of a shark is its teeth, it's size, it's ability to eat and digest almost anything. An oyster's identity it its protective shell. Identity then is the means by which an organism protects and maintains itself in a hostile environment and all environments that contain such identities are hostile. And what is the identity of Abhoth the Dark? It's ability to remain hidden and carry on a parasitic existence that is hostile to its host by parasitic necessity. So we are all playing Abhoth's game. And by setting one identity against another Abhoth maintains himself indefinitely.
Isolation from such an environment is the first step in the unexplored territory of inner space... As man loses touch with his inner being he finds himself trapped in the world of consciousness that is to say the world of other people. "Man is a political animal" said Aristotle telling one of the greatest lies inhuman history. For every man has more in common with the hills and with the stars than with other men. Other men do not supply our values. Other men do not matter in the way we have believed. Man is not alone. You could be the last man in the universe and you would not be alone.
MORE BORROUGHS MIND ZAPS COMING NEXT ISSUE
KNOW YOUR GENRE: A BOOK BY IT'S COVER
The official description of the cover illustration from the 1969 Panther Books edition of Nova Express: "a pink and green crayfish stoking a furnace with computer tape; out of the furnace is arising smoke in which is a specimen jar containing a blue head being strangled and some people in a lifeboat escaping a dinosaur." from Joe Maynard and Barry Miles, William Burroughs; A Bibliography, 1953-73. Actually, it's even better. The smoke is in the shape of a nuclear mushroom cloud, there is a small astronaut tethered to the blue head in the specimen jar, the dinosaur is pursuing the lifeboat across a cracked dry riverbed, there is a cluster of skyscrapers on the horizon and, outside the mushroom cloud, a hypodermic spaceship with delta wings is headed off into space. Just in case you still can't figure it out, across the top of the cover are the words "Panther Science Fiction". It makes you wonder what might have graced the cover of an Ace Books edition had Burroughs stuck with his old publishers of Junky.
Noted - a continuing series of sound bites...
The ultimate man-machine interface is the guy who jumps in his car every morning and drives to work and doesn't think twice about it. It's when technology is at its most invisible that it's at its most potent. - - David Cronenberg
do you think that "cyberpunk fiction" and its aesthetic is "guilty" of creating the post-human contagion as self-fulfilling aesthetic prophecy, or was cyberpunk fiction simply a very sensitive / responsive "symptom" of a process already in motion? - - free agent .rez
Laura Croft personifies the essential techie-boy wet dream: sex, violence, and the ability to manipulate a really hot chick. - - David Kushner
Interviewer: What is the origin of the rumor that you are dead and why does it persist?
Robert Anton Wilson: "It was started by some joker at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. It persists because after many people claimed to have seen me and heard me at lectures, the rumor began that the CIA had killed me and replaced me with a robot or android that imitates my style of thought and speech and I was programmed not to know the difference. Since that cannot be refuted by definition, I've learned to live with the idea."
Uternauts and technocapsules: "genetically manipulated fetus growing within the bodies of brain-dead human women." - - Monica J. Casper
Meanwhile, back at the videostore...
THE ADVENTURES OF ELECTRIC ROD BOY
Shinya Tsukamoto, the mastermind who gave us Tetsuo and Tokyo Fist, hits the decadent West with another film, thanks to Video Search of Miami. "The Adventures of Electric Rod Boy" is one piece of twisted weirdness; a demented kids' story mixed with time travel, vampires, sex, violence and cheesy special effects. Sort of like watching Saturday morning television after being dosed with a big hit of nerve gas.
Kia, the hero, is a homely, downtrodden kid that would have been a loser anyway, but with a long, thick rod growing out of his back he's a magnet for bullies. This strange protuberance sticks out like a sore thumb, ah, arm, from under his shirt. His adventure begins when he is rescued from a bunch of bullies by Momo, a school friend who has taken poor Kia under her wing. In gratitude, he shows her his new invention, a time machine. Activating the machine causes our hero to be picked up by a time scoop and tossed into the future.
The future is pretty grim. The sky is covered with thick black clouds, blocking the sun. Vampires fly through the streets on jet-propelled sleds killing at random. Kia's arrival interrupts a fight between three vampires and a bespectacled swordswoman. His electric rod opens a hole in the clouds letting in the sunlight causing the trio of bloodsuckers to flee. Strangely, the old woman, Dr. Sariba, has been expecting Kia. She explains that he is now 25 years in the future, 15 years after the vampire clan, Shinsen-gumi, detonated a nuclear bomb plunging the world into endless night. They have preyed on humanity ever since. But the clouds are beginning to dissipate at last. So the Shinsen-gumi are building another weapon, the Adam Special, to bring the darkness back, this time forever. Sariba has been waiting for Kia and "the Power of the Rod" to defeat the vampires.
Kia and Sariba go to the lair where the Adam Special is being assembled. The bomb's chief component is cyborged human girl, Eve, who upon reaching her first period, will activate the bomb. The heroes attack, but are easily defeated by the Shinsen-gumi. They flee with two of the vampires in hot pursuit. In their absence, a third vampire, unable to control his lust, rapes Eve and drinks her blood.
Kia and Sariba are cornered. Kia tries to use the power of the rod but fails miserably. The vampires mortally wound Sariba. They are prevented from killing the two humans by the sudden arrival of another time scoop which causes the clouds to disperse just as night begins to fall. The Shinsen-gumi now have only a few hours to activate their new weapon before the returning dawn destroys them.
The new time traveler is another Electric Rod Boy traveling through time from the Edo Period. Unlike poor wretched Kia, this Boy is cool, handsome, -- and has enough electronic gear growing out of his electric rod to run the Internet. He explains that in every age there is a new Electric Boy to save mankind from peril. But Kia is such a lame ass pathetic loser that he's disgusted. Humiliated and beaten, Kia looks through Sariba's photo album and discovers that Sariba is, of course, his old protector Momo, grown into an old woman. Sorrow and rage cause Kia to sprout a new addition to his rod and he is determined to stop the Shinsen-gumi before they detonate the Adam Special.
Back in vampire HQ, Eve goes through her final metamorphosis, becoming an actual machine in that signature Tsukamoto stop-action motion we have come to expect. But because she was raped before achieving puberty something goes wrong. Instead of exploding she goes mobile. Dawn breaks without the protective cloud cover and the Shinsen-gumi die horribly. Dr. Sariba, barely alive, undergoes a mutation into a cyborg and pursues the mecha-Eve. They fight and Sariba is killed. But Kia then destroys Eve with his new Rod attachment. The Edo Electric Rod Boy makes a final appearance, congratulates Kia on a job well done and returns him to his proper time and the young Momo for whom no time has passed at all.
Whew! Actually, I'm not at all sure about that last paragraph. There seems to be a bit of the story missing -- or maybe Tsukamoto was running out of time and cut to the chase. Whatever. It's a delirious video. Plus, the tape includes trailers for other Tsukamoto's works like Tetsuo, Tetsuo II, Hiruko the Goblin, the short Phantom of Regular Size (a warm up for Tetsuo) and a Japan MTV station identification commercial that is fabulous -- with music by NIN. Not the best duplication quality to say the least. It's often blurry and has that washed-out color problem of most high-speed dupes. At one point the picture drops out entirely for a few seconds. But what can you do? You're never going to see this video anywhere else. We can only be grateful to Video Search of Miami for making this version available to us at all. Go find a copy!
Cyberpunk R.I.P. -- again
Actually, this should have appeared in the last issue of Interference On the Brain Screen in the "Farewell to Cyberpunk" feature. Can't imagine how I missed this.
Cyberpunk IS DEAD
Crass declared "Punk Rock" dead in 1978 -- the movement had existed for maybe two years. Being twice as timely and three times as cutting edge, Heat Seeker hereby declares "Cyberpunk" dead, at least two years before the movement even began! Cyberpunk has bloated and popped like a ripe Wildebeest even before virtual reality made it to the Pentagon, much less the Radio Shack. Here's how it happened:
(The Rise)
* A bunch of Star Trek nerds get hold of William Gibson's "Neuromancer" and mistake fiction for fact.
* A few zines and BBSs pop up as some fluff heads stumble across the word "counter-culture" in a stray copy of Rolling Stone.
* Time magazine hacks, hungry for "real" news, discovers some "virtual" news instead: The "Cyberpunk Movement" is officially recognized.
* Fat, bloated Billy Idol considers going "Grunge" to reclaim his title of "rebel" -- until his Media Image Consultant stumbles across the aforementioned issue of Time.
(The Fall)
* Identity starved pre-teen pseudo-rebels begin prowling the malls in search of Mondo 2000, four quarter V.R video pong, and smart drugs, smart beer, and smart dope.
* The cops notice. Everything which could possibly be used to have fun is made illegal.
* The Next-Big-Thing comes along (Timothy Leary jumps on it) and everybody closets their Hack-Man Game Boys and Ministry CDs until the 90s retro begins.
from Heat Seeker #11 (1993)
