contrary to contradict another one. be polite, be true, become opera live to contradict another one pretty damned important too. sleeping, the good stuff. I think that alotta the time I get confused about why people are telling me certain things.

how am i goin to make it right?

Pounding and smashing, even the desire to kill, may be expressed. Self-organization is related to the tendency of the parent or sibling or perhaps the entire chaotic system to spontaneously enter states in which surprising and potentially useful properties arise either through play or through direct verbalization. This concept is revolutionizing: I’m finally locating some confidence in myself. The brain may be bumped, suddenly and unpredictably, from one conscious state to another by the escalating -Holy shit! That chick is interviewing for my job. “University types... We’ll see what happens.” She knows there’s still one candidate. But they’ll never find anyone who can move and shake like this! activation of one of its many neuronal subsystems.

unknown territory. I know that a path can be made. So, to get to a point dat is out of dis world maybe I just have to confirm a path. I wonder how I do that. I’ve started to see things differently lately. They seem much more contingent, or arbitrary or somethin.

Movement and action takes a certain amount of time or continuity. How do we do this? How do we account for this? Back to Libet. “There is no experimental evidence against the possibility that the control process may appear without prior unconscious processes (that specifically develop it).” I can’t remember what it was about Grice that I liked, a good feelin to be sure. But he sometimes did good deeds amid a throng of bad ones; he stole with furious rapacity, and gave liberally; intrepid in action, rather mild in company, debauched at table, gay in debauchery, and above all full of frankness. ... but are you aware that in Paris there have already been some serious experiments relating to the possibility of the insane by means of the simple influence of logical reasoning? When I looked up at the building, I got scarred. Looked more like a castle than a school - bars on the windows and an iron gate on the front door. Above the door, the words in the stone read: ANTIDEPRESSANTS MAY INCREASE THE RISK OF SUICIDAL THOUGHTS OR ACTIONS IN CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS. Behind the school there were more trees in rows. I came round the corner, and my eyes saw something they didn’t know what to tell me it was. They were people -women, I think-

There was a certain professor there who died not so long ago, a serious scientist who believed that such a treatment was possible. If I say that Mirj is selfish because he refuses to become well, then what does that make me? The risk may be greater during the first few months that patients take this medicine. Be sure that the benefits of using this medicine outweigh the risks. Recording thoughts in language. “It’s very freeing”, apparently, instead of in anger or hurtful actions. They only ever hurt themselves. Maybe we’re all jus dancing all the time. Maybe those people are staring at me. Maybe they’re’adin my thoughts before I get to them. Maybe they’re passin them on to me. They think I’m copyin them down. They’re interrupting. They want me to move my existence. Well, that’s not going to happen any time soon, because I am an automatic weapon. I’m fully loaded and I’m ready to go. His basic idea was that there is nothing particularly wrong with the organism of the insane person, and that insanity is, as it were, a logical error, an error of judgement, a mistaken view of things. ADDITIONAL MONITORING OF YOUR DOSE OR CONDITION may be needed if you are taking certain diet medicines (such as phentermine), linezolid, lithium, metoclopramide, nefazodone reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) (such as duloxetine), 5-HT1 receptor agonists (such as sumatriptan), tramadol, trazodone, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs) (such as ibuprofen), diuretics (such as furosemde or hydrochlorothiazide), cimetidine, ketoconazole, cyproheptadine, aripiprazole, haloperidol, phenothiazines (such as chlorpromazine or thiorridazine), or reperidone. He would refute the arguments of his patient step by step and, would you believe it, it’s said he achieved results that way! But in view of the fact that he accompanied this treatment with cold baths, those results should, of course, be viewed with some scepticism... All but four patients were right-handed according to the Edinburgh Inventory. Vision was normal or corrected to normal. Patients’ mean IQ, as estimated by the score at the Raven Progressive Matirices PM47, was 91.7. Short-term memory span was 6.4 and 3.5, forward and backwards, respectively. Language comprehension, as assessed by the Token Test was good (mean score 33.2/36). “Ha,” said I to myself, “it seems that there are some people who grow there,” and, as my mind was so stupefied with grief, I only conceived ideas as in a dream. Suddenly the van changed its course and I saw the towers of Notre-Dame in the distance, blue and half hidden in the smoke of Paris. At once my ideas changed from Beatrice to Notre-Dame. “Those who will be on the tower with the flag will see my execution well,” said I to myself smiling stupidly. They’re interrupting. Want me to move my chair, my body (my existence?). Well, it’s not going to happen.

“No physician’s prescriptions, no medicine seemed of the slightest benefit as a cure for this disease.”

Nice way to start de fuckin day: lecture from de little ol’building manager. Moses gonna get an earful bout dis one. Of course, he’s right bout some things. But at least I got myself a good sleep der. Might as well go down to de Field, get an early start to my day.

“... symbolic gift means more than you initially believe... an extended period of calm...”

“We stayed at my place...”

“That’s really close to Crystal Ball... So fast-paced...”

“Wasn what I thought it would be.”

“Tell him to get his money back... of course, he doesn’t have his...”

“Where you grow an... thought bubbles and you can tell the story... That’s what the next level is: the story-telling language.”

“It’s...”

“Been watching movies and... Get up and go out to watch a movie.”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t get it.”

“So you’re talking about a platform...”

“The representation of story... individuals that you can meet... it’s like a toy box... computers can’t tell a story... If you could build a story... a system... the book is a story... exactly... modern... there’s... anyway, so seven different tribes... gives you all these different kinda classes...”

Fuck. Pretty hard for me not to take some o’dat shit personally. Gawd. Maybe I’ll just move on to somethin else.

“Do not confuse it with those chance dynamite outbreaks from Russia, which are really the outbreaks of the oppressed, if mistaken, men.”

“The main mass of their supporters are merely anarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human happiness.”

“They believe that all the evil results of human crime are the results of the system that has called it crime.”

“They do not believe that the crime creates the punishment.”

“They believe that the punishment has created the crime.”

Now, da’s’omethin dat interests me.

“We deny the snobbish English assumption that the uneducated are the dangerous criminals.”

“For similar reasons, Lewis praises certain African carvings.”

“You are not sufficiently democratic, but you were right when you said just now that our ordinary treatment of the poor criminal was a pretty brutal business.”

Lewis: “Under such conditions, the personality becomes a bullet-like lump; its emotions are clean, clear-cut; its art is hard, dense, packed with compressed energy.”

“You seem to equate the primitive artist’s isolating withdrawal from the ‘vagueness of space,’ with the Vorticist’s ‘egotistic hardening’ and withdrawal from the diluting effects of ‘Life’.”

“I tell you I am sometimes sick of my trade when I see how perpetually it means merely a war upon the ignorant and the desperate.”

Lewis again: “Primitive art reveals a personality contracted into itself from fear of dissolving in the vagueness of space.”

“Do you mean that there is really as much connection between crime and the modern intellect as all that?”

“Primitivism and modernism, savagery and art, meet in the Vortex.”

Lewis:”In that frame of mind, I conclude my rejection and belittling of ‘Life’ with an affirmation of hardness, energy, and violence of the Vortex.”

“We say that the dangerous criminal is the educated criminal.”

“Our Vortex is fed up with your dispersals, reasonable chicken-men.”

“Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; my heart goes out to them.”

“Our Vortex is proud of its polished sides.”

“They accept the essential idea of man; they merely seek it wrongly.”

“Our Vortex will not hear of anything but its disastrous polished dance.”

“Thieves respect property.”

Man, dey gettin so heated-up today. Oh shit, Randt’s comin along. Hope he don’t fuck it up. I can tell already. He gonna fuck it up, soon as he opens his big fat mouth. I might as well jus walk away, cuz dis whole simulation’s gonna go to hell now. Goddammit Randt. Why’s it so easy for you to fuck my shit up. Every single fuckin time. Goddammit.

Randt: “Granted it could always be a scam. Ain’t no people in the world who ain up for some kinda scam. Believe you me. But that don’t entail that there wasn some sorta truth to the proposition. That don’t entail that there wasn somethin real that they were pickin up. Miniscule alterations that you never noticed yerself, but were takin place none the less. “

Lewis proclaims, “The Vorticist does not suck up to Life. He lets Life know its place in a Vorticist Universe! He uses life for his brothel so that he can keep himself pure for non-life, that is Art.”

“Art, then becomes the contrasting force to Life.”

“Take Joe, for instance. Totally stuck in the eighties. He puts everyone into categories and gets so caught up in them that he totally forgets about people, like what real people are like. He's that whole Ringwald movie series all rolled into one. And the truth is, people just aren't like that anymore. Maybe its the drug movement, maybe it’s post-modern ecclecticism. Call it what you will, but the distinctions between different types of people have broken down.”

First I’m gonna try some classic Goffman (1961) on dis’ucker: “Staff members’ energy waxes and wanes. These involvement cycles occur when a staff member becomes close to some inmates, retreats, then builds warm relationships again.”

“No, I don get it.”

“Like, there are times when I really like the patients and I really want to work with them and help them. And then there are times when I get completely fed up with all of their crap. Don’t you get that?”

“...”

“When they are discouraged or despondent, they work in a listless, perfunctory, and routine way. Some make an effort to disguise their discouragement, but others do not.”

Randt is jus lookin at me kinda sideways, like he’s supposin dat dis a trick question or somethin, “I jus don’t think it’s the best time to be talkin bout that sorta thing, y’know, like when we’re actually surrounded by ‘the patients’. Y’know, like, we’re in the FIELD right now, man.”

Yeah, I guess he’s probly right bout that one. Somehow dat jus didn’t occur to me. I dunno why. Maybe i’s cuz I turned Maro off, or somethin. Thing is dat I don really get any other chance to talk to Randt. I only see him in de FIELD an sometimes at d’occasional Board Meetin. What am I s’posed to do, get’im to make an appointment?

“Some o’de patients ask to switch counselors when dey have conflicts wid’individual to whom dey bin assigned.”

“What is this about, man? You know I don’t get any patients assigned to me.”

Randt jus goes back to his usual shit, now.

“Take Joe, for instance. Totally stuck in the eighties. He puts everyone into categories and gets so caught up in them that he totally forgets about people, like what real people are like. He's that whole Ringwald movie series all rolled into one. And the truth is, people just aren't like that anymore. Maybe its the drug movement, maybe it’s post-modern ecclecticism. Call it what you will, but the distinctions between different types of people have broken down.”

Ok, so maybe I’ll try some Leibniz, den, “I know what you sayin, Nominal Definition: consists of de numeration o’the marks o’requisites which are sufficient to distinguish a thing from all others.”

I got de feelin he ain gonna like dat one too much.

“You can jus fuck right off. You don even kno’what you talkin bout. See ya later, sucker.”

Guess I’m on my own, now. De patients’till goin on.

“Even Time dissolves in the presence of Art. Life is the Past and the Future, the Present is Art.”

Man, where’d’ey boil up dis bile o’shit from? I’m gonna reply wid some real quality, “It is its time because it puts in the present, just as each acting subject is his time, that is, a presence that puts in the present whatever is related to it.”

Haa ha. Take that. Got that one from good old Henry Corbin.

Lewis insists, “There is no Present - there is a Past and Future, and there is Art.”

Dat is’uch bullshit. Might as well be talkin to Randt. I’ll try some more Corbin, but I don’t’hink i’s gonna get me anywhere. “It is likewise to reduce real time to abstract physical time, to the essentially quantitative time which is that of the objectivity of mundane calendars from which the signs that gave a sacred qualification to every present have disappeared.”

“For the sake of Art artists must reject society; for, in society, men ‘overlap’ and ‘intersect’, and promiscuity is normal.”

“But promiscuity is normal.”

“Artists must undergo a course of egotistic hardening before they can produce hard outside art.”

Dis d’art dat Lewis admires most. I oughtta be referrin dis guy to JoseF.

“Woodcuts are disciplined, blunt, thick and brutal.”

Or maybe I could get’im to meet up wid a student somehow. Maybe I should just enroll’im in one o’JoseF’s classes.

“... They alighted on the eternal questions, but went up in a gust of hot air.”

“Vorticism, in fact, was what I, personally, did and said, at a certain period.”

“Would you believe it, Rod? Last night they got on to the question of whether there’s such a thing as crime or not! I told you they were talking a devil of a lot of nonsense! But tonight our friend Pash, there, brought up the law of progress, and we got on statistics; then Lily, there, sayin we knew well enough before countin that in the same state of society the same sort of things would happen, and it was no more wonder that quantities should remain the same than that qualities should remain the same, for in relation to society numbers are qualities - the number of drunkards is a quality in society - the numbers are an index to the qualities, and give us no instruction, only setting us to consider the causes of difference between different social states - Lily sayin this, we went off on the causes o'social change, and when you came in I was goin upon the power of ideas, which I hold to be the main transformin cause.”

“BUT in conversation with Ezra Pound there emerged the idea of defining what WE wanted & having a name for it.”

“What’s so extraordinary about it? It’s a social problem you hear discussed all the time.”

“Ultimately Gaudier for sculpture, Ezra Pound for poetry, and Wyndham Lewis, the prime mover, set down their personal requirements.”

“Not in the terms in which they were formulating it,” says Godwin, the inlayer, more concerned to carry on the subject than to wait for a word from the new guest.

“Wyndham Lewis certainly MADE Vorticism...”

“You can say that again. I say, Rod: listen and give me your opinion. For either you mean so many sorts o'things by ideas that I get no knowledge by what you say... or else you mean a particular sort of idea, and then I go against yer meaning as too narrow. For look at it in one way, all actions MEN put a bit o'thought into are ideas - say, sowing seed, or makin a canoe, or bakin clay; and such ideas as these work themselves into life and go on growing with it, but they can't go apart fromt he material that set them to work and makes a medium for them. It's the nature o'wood and stone yieldin to the knife that raises the idea o'shapin them, and with plenty o'wood and stone the shapin will go on. I look at it, that such ideas as are mixed straight away with all the other elements o'life are powerful along with'em. The slower the mixin, the less power they have. And as to the causes o'social change, I look at it in this way - ideas are a sort of parliament, but there's a commonwealth outside, and a good deal of the commonwealth is working at change without knowing what the parliament is doing. I want to hear it. I nearly burst a blood-vessel arguing with them last night before you arrived, I couldn’t wait for you to get there; I’d told them you were coming... What sparked it off was when we started talking about the view of the socialists. It’s a view that is well-known: crime is a protest against the craziness of the social system - and that’s all there is to it, no more than that, and no other reasons conceded - so it doesn’t matter!...”

“’Vorticism’ now seems more a period label than an aesthetic programme.”

“Here comes the nonsense again! But if you take easy mixing as your test of power, some of the least practical ideas beat everything. They spread without being understood, and enter into the language without being understood, and enter into the language without being thought of... ”

“What, then, was Vorticism? The question has been asked, and answered, before.”

“Take JoE, for instance. Totally stuck in the eighties. He puts everyone into categories and gets so caught up in them that he totally forgets about people, like what real people are like. He's that whole Ringwald movie series all rolled into one. And the truth is, people just aren't like that anymore. Maybe it's the drug movement, maybe it’s post-modern ecclecticism. Call it what you will, but the distinctions between different types of people have broken down.”

I’d totally forgotten dat dis conversation was going on between patients, dat is til Randt came back an opened his ignorant mouth. But I ain got nothin to add’is time. I’m jus happy to sit back and observe, cept for de very real fact dat I’m d’one runnin dis’imulation. De rest jus totally ignorin Randt anyway, which I find hilarious.

“What is Vorticism? Well, like Futurism, and Imagisme, and Cubism, essentially it is nonsense. But it is more important than these other fantastic, artistic, and literary movements because it is their sure conclusion.”

“N-no other reasons are conceded! It’s not nonsense!... I can show you the books they have: they put it all down to being ‘a prey to one’s surroundings’ - and that’s it! It’s their favourite expression! From that it follows directly that if only society were to be organized sanely, crime would simply disappear, as there would be nothing to protest about and everyone would become virtuous, just like that.”

“What was Vorticism? The answer could only be - a slogan.”

“Nature isn’t taken into consideration, nature is banished, nature is not supposed to exist. The way they see it, it’s not MANkind which, moving along a HIStorical, living path of development, will finally transmute itself into a sane society, but rather a social system which, having emanated from some mathematical head, will at once reorganize the whole of mankind and in a single instant make it virtuous and free from sin, more speedily than any living process, bypassing any historical or living path!”

“Vorticism... What does this word mean? I do not know.”

“That is why they have such an instinctive dislike of HIStory.”

“One MAN’s doings, group designation, personal requirements, period label, nonsense, slogan, enigma - all of these must be accounted for in answering the question. They may act by changing the distribution of gases. Instruments are getting so fine now. MEN may come to register the spread of a theory by observed changes in the atmosphere and corresponding changes in the nerves.”

“It’s nothing but a catalogue of outrages and follies. Ay, ye've done well to bring us round to the point. Ye're all agreed that societies change - not always and everywhere - but on the whole and in the long-run. Now, with all deference, I would beg to observe that we have got to examine the nature of changes before we have a warrant to call them progress, which word is supposed to include a bettering, though I apprehend it to be ill chosen for that purpose, since mere motion onward may carry us to a bog or a precipice. And the questions I would put are three: Is all change in the direction of progress? If not, how shall we discern which change is progress and which not? And thirdly, how far and in what ways can we act upon the course of change so as to promote it where it is beneficial and divert it where it is injurious?”

Lily immediately says, “What was Vorticism? Change and progress are merged in the idea of development. The laws of development are being discovered, and changes taking place according to them are necessarily progressive; that is to say, if we have any notion of progress or improvement opposed to them, the notion is a mistake.”

"I really can't see how you arrive at that sort of certitude about changes by calling them development."

"That is a truth. Woe to the MEN who see no place for resistance in this generation! I believe in a growth, a passage, and a new unfolding of life where of the seed is more perfect, more charged with the elements that are pregnant with..."


Well, dis a fascinatin time in de Field an all, but I'm gonna get on over to JoseF's class now.

Here I am, yet again, monitoring de testimonial transfer of information. How is this format beneficial to de student? In particular, d’international students, cuz lord knows, da’s where de money is.

“C’mon, folks! If we were going any slower, we’d be going backwards! Is anyone awake out there? Texts embody and describe personal... routines...”

Alluva sudden, Derek Eidick pipes up.

“What about Aime Cesaire?”

JoseF jus gives’im a questionin look, so Derek continues.

“Yeah, in 1939 he published this searing long poem ‘Cahier d’un retour au pays natal’. He wrote of his native Martinique, colonial oppression, rediscovered African sources...”

Who is dis freaking kid?

“He even coined the term ‘Negritude’.”

Is dat a good thing?

“Oh yes, I know to whom you’re referring! Excellent example. His poetry was written in the language of Lautreamont and Rimbaud, but it was a French spattered with neologisms, punctuated by new rhythms. For Cesaire, a ‘native land’ was something complex and hybrid, salvaged from a lost origin, constructed out of a squalid present, articulated within and against a colonial tongue. Yes, we should definitely take a look at him... autobiographical... intervention of technique... cut-up from Dadaists... associative riffs... elements and moments... repetition... loops... unattributed quotes... Roland Barthes... zeroing... carnival of dislocations... attempt to break down authority... hierarchy... meaning... linear order... tease us into recognizing meaningless universe... all meaning is contingent and personal... rise and dominence of pop culture... playfulness... radical skepticism... decomposition... subversion... the word no longer the central core... image... radical tone is skepticism... Deconstructionism... structuralism: De Saussere... 1906-11... A course in general linguistics... initiated critical momentum... semiotics... structuralism... post-structuralism... deconstructionism... critique of language rests on the sign...”

Oh, gawd, I hate that stupid signifier/signified bullshit! I feel’ike I’ve never heard a stupider idea.

“language reflects ourselves... subjective constructs that cloud the world... terms are interchangeable... words drift in meaning... diachronic vs. synchronic... 1915-1980: Roland Barthes... philosophical focus to culture.. world interpretive matrix of signs... writing degree... mythology... interdisciplinary focus... Jacques Derrida... writing indifference... feminism... deconstructing authority... male-dominated theoretical structure... Pop Culture... war between content and artist... not transparent... it’s a game... Kathy Acker... Empire of the Senseless... banned... Why girls like to fuck... short story... written to theory novel of ideas European tradition... deconstructionist novel... anti-literature... conventions, language exploded... collage...”

Mr. Derek Eidick is piping up again. Kid’s got a lot on his mind today.

“Sex refers to the differences, both biological and anatomical, between males and females, while gender is thought of as a cultural phenomenon, which society has constructed around the meanings of femininity and masculinity...”

He kinda peters out der, but JoseF picks up on de thread.

“Are you saying that gender is more of a choice, while sex is something that society assigns?”

“Well, gender is more complex than sex. It is more ambiguous and changes over time.”

“I understand what you’re saying. We’ll get into that in more detail next week... violent dada... attack on authority... end of the fathers... incest... sexual abuse... responsible for an approach... outlaw genre... make novel something new... back to De Sade... outlaw... anti-literary obsessive... sexuality... body is battlefield... taboos... body artwork...”

Somehow dis been too much for one girl. She must be havin a bad time. Tears are streamin down her face. She picks up her books and leaves de room. Hmm... Who is dat? Present files indicate:

Silence by Shannan Laktin

I thought I was alone

Until I spoke my secret shame

And saw the tears

That stung my lips

In eyes that were not mine

I heard my secret fears

On other tongues

And found my power In the first touch

In the first trust

After the violence inflicted

For being

Woman

I better check-up on dat one later. JoseF is’tunned, but he carries on.

“Genet... deconstruct how one reads language subject... post-modern... (Cormac McCarthy - most significant post-war author)... language as a force... not transparent... seeing it as a construction... language as a power structure... writing on human flesh... paternity... avusive power... ruined landscape pollution for profit... restriction and anarchy... a discipline in itself... dissolving landscape... Beckett... explores obscenity... theme of apocalypse... pollution... nature of bosses... aging fathers reassuring, while selling us out... outsider... body as theatre... how one sets oneself apart... love... breaking down structures of life ”

Whoa, man, I hardly ever hear dis guy talk bout ‘love’.

“live beyond norms of society... renewal... nihilism... worship of commodities... obsession with possession... Sylvia Plath... deconstruct... take everything to zero... once acheiving the zero, rebuild, renew, reconstruct...”

“Prufrock... world is troubled... crisis poems... linkages...inward, private movement... ‘Wasteland’... he sees this disappearing... Universe is a richer place than we know and we’ve lost this feeling... ‘Four Quartets’: theme of time, redemption of time... The end of Modernism... no definite ending... Modernism still with us... new sciences and technology... psychoanalysis ended modern period... no longer producers but consumers... much irony instead of earnestness... Gertrude Stein (playing with language against its meaning) and Hemingway ended Modernism... Hemingway was the antithesis to Modernism... nostalgia and retro fashion was the seal on the tomb of modernism... Media has shrunk space and time... telephone collapses space and time... history leaking back into the present... end of history... post-modern culture is becoming aware of self as a culture... ”

Now I’m considering Alonzo Church. What does he think of Tarski? Or maybe Russell’s Paradox? Gawd, that would sure be nice to know. Le’s check up on Kretschmar for a minute, shall we? Ohhhh, quotin Moustakas again, like a fucking mantra:

“As the relationship between the child and therapist is clarified...”

Jus like butter. ha ha.

“...strengthened, the child’s deeper feelings of hostility become gradually sharpened and more specific.”

Hmmm... Very interesting and yet, somehow I jus don’t care right now. Le’s check up on my status in London-town again. Yes, I’m dissociatin again... But at least I’m doin somethin useful. ha ha ha... Le’s’ee... Alonzo Church... What can we dig up on him while dis here lecture is going on. Oh, wait a second. I forgot bout how Alonzo Church is totally full o’shit. A logistic system with an assignment o’meaning to its expressions? Whateva... Godel! For chrissake! Didn’t he study any Godel whatsoever? Was Alonzo Church actually thinkin that he could turn natural language into a formal system o’some kind? What a laugh... I wonder what that ‘paradox of analysis’ is. Hmmm... Frege, eh? I know a couple of experts on Frege. Is his notion o’function really that problematic?

Hold on. Is that an alarm going off somewhere? Hmmm...

Hey, dis ain London callin, i’s Munich.

“Visual search is a key paradigm in attention research that has proved to be a test bed for competing theories of selective attention. The starting point for most current theories of visual search has been Treisman’s ‘feature integration theory’ of visual attention (e.g., Treisman and Gelade, 1980). A number of key issues that have been raised in attempts to test this theory are still pertinent questions of research today...”

He goes on to assume a lot regarding ‘function’ here. I wonder if he’s ever read any Frege.

“A key paradigm in attention research, that has proved to be a test bed for competing theories of selective attention, is visual search. In the standard paradigm, the observer is presented with a display that can contain a target stimulus amongst a variable number of distractor stimuli. The total number of stimuli is referred to as the display size. The target is either present or absent, and the observers’ task is to make a target-present vs. target-absent decision as rapidly and accurately as possible. (Alternatively, the search display may be presented for a limited exposure duration, and the dependent variable is the accuracy of target detection.)”

“Modernist movement... blast manifesto... Eliot would not be enlisted... innovations, masking, neo-classical, remaking of other’s poems... technical wizardry... preeminent poet of suffereing... epic journey... haunting clarity... dislocation... mystic wholeness...Thomas Stearns Eliot... born 1885, in St. Louis... state of Missouri... (home of another great writer, William S. Burroughs)... family was full of clergy and teachers... He went to Harvard in 1906... taught school in London... became a clerk in a bank... 1915... Vivienne Haywood... married... breakdown... 1920s ‘Wasteland’... Paris... Pound... editing... 1925... editor, director at publishers ‘Faber and Faber’... British subject... 1948 Nobel Prize... 1950s best known poet... 1964 died of emphysema... married again... Valerie Eliot... happy marriage... plays... just listen to... voice from the depths of struggle... uses classical forms... long poems... assemblage of lyrics... or tightly united?”

He’s lookin round but none here is prepared to answer his question. Dey all jus fallin asleep to de lull of his voice.

“Ahmm... ‘Prufrock’... musical echoes... sounds... reverberations... poet of emotion... prose against classic... technique... plays with language... coherence of images... ‘Wasteland’ and ‘Four Quartets’...”

He writin somethin on de board now.

“5 Divisions of Rhetoric: 1)Invention 2)Disposition 3)Elocution 4)Memory/Recall 5)Delivery

Hey, kids! Wake-up! We’re not talking about pizza here. We’re talking about a sequential outward movement... public... retrieving older forms...”

What a long way dis guy has come. I can hardly believe it myself, lookin back at de stuff he used to write.

Ferries for the Soul

“Fairy” is inaccurate: It’s several letters off.

I tell you, gays are ferries for the soul.

Between the banks of yin and yang we operate, and cross

Biology to keep the genders whole,

As each contains its opposite - A “fairy” is that bridge

Between the male and female which allows

The two to interact outside the principle of marriage,

Existing as a necessary flaw.

Well, dat was back when he was JoD, I guess. Long time ago.

OH, you’re right, Maro. Gotta get goin to dat Board Meetin.

Der be peeps fillin in. I’m tryin to find a place to sit myself, and also remember dem all from der profiles. In da peanut gallery we got de Cock (who looks like he fallin asleep, maybe he’d be a good one to sit beside), and a bunch of other student reps. We also gotta couple o’staff members who bin sucked into takin notes. Megan B. has been a Drug and Alcohol Counsellor at G. House since graduation.

Ted R. works in private practice and has also worked as a consultant to MSB-Health Canada -- Medical Services Branch, Ministry of Health and Social Services, P.W.A. Society, Workers Compensation Board.

Louisa G. is a counsellor at the Police Department under the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres.

Ahh, maybe not. Looks like she havin a good laugh wid an ex-chancellor, too rich for my blood. The Warden, de Sub-Warden. De Vices. All a lotta fuckin big wigs. Da’s for damn sure. An I feel like I ain one o’dem at all. Wha da hell’m I doin here, anyway? Big business junkies an de like. Looks like everyone’s jus bout here. Der is a large, large woman and I’m havin trouble figurin out what her role (heh-heh) is here. She don seem to fit (heh-heh) in here, either. Stumblin, limpin aroun.

Guess I better get myself a seat. I’m gonna try sittin beside the Cock for a change. He’s sorta surrounded by student reps here, but I see an empty seat.

“No room! No room!”

Da’s ridiculous. Fuckin racist or some shit. Der’s all kindsa room. Jus cuz dey gotta hole up in one corner o’de room doesn mean no one else can join dem. Fuck. I useta be a studen’too y’know. I feel’ike tellin’em to fuck right off, but instead I jus’tart lookin for somewhere else to sit. Fuck it. I’m sittin wid’e students. Der’s nowhere else to sit, an I can tell da’the meetin is bout to start. Dey’ll jus hafta deal. No, wait. I guess I can sit nex’to d’ex-chancellor, maybe an de beautiful dentist. Dat wouldn be so bad afterall.

“Ahh, der’s plenty o’room.” I tell those fuckin studens, an den I go to d’other end o’de room. Right in de midst of all de big-wigs. D’ex-chancellor is right beside me. He’s lookin me up an’down.

“Have some wine,” he says openin up his jacket as I sit down. I see a flask in der. He’s takin it out discreetly an offerin it to me. He’s holdin it right up to my face. It seems pretty empty to me, an from de smell it was somethin a little stronger dan wine dat was in it in de first place.

“I don see any wine, man,” I’m sayin to him.

“There isn’t any,” he says with a very kooky kinda smile. How old is dis guy anyway? He looks like he’s bout 102 years of age.

“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” says some kinda businessman on de other side o’me.

“It wasn very civil of YOU to sit down without bein’vited,” d’ex-chancellor is sayin to de businessman wid a wink at me. Maybe dis guy ain so bad afterall.

“I didn’t know this was YOUR row, John,” de businessman is bout to lose his temper.

“Cut your hair,” d’ex-chancellor snaps back. Dis is pretty funny cuz de businessman looks a bit like an old hippy ‘cept for his suit. He got all kindsa beeds an tattoos an stuff, not to mention a great big head o’long hair. I figure I better break in before things get outta hand.

“Hey, guys. Le’s not get into de personal remarks, ok?”

D’hippy businessman is openin his eyes very wide an den they suddenly become all squinty-like an small. He’s bout to say somethin to me, but a loud bout o’raucous laughter interrupts him. Someone nearby is tellin jokes.

“Then the patient says, ‘I coulda been a psychopath.’ So, I say, ‘Don’t worry. If you’re wrong, you won’t lose your head.’ Haa haaa haaa.” De guy is laughin so hard, he’s just about chokin.

Now de name tags bein propped up on de table. I’s funny cuz dey got dis huge-like table from medieval times or somethin, but d’whole Board is all crunched at one’nd of it. Now we see how up to date dem websites really is. Connectin the dots: the relations between all dese people. Can’t quite be read. But it look like de lovely Ms. Inwest Investments Inc. ain gonna make it today, unless she’s jettin in late. I’s gettin called to order now. Der’s gonna be another presentation today.

“Clearly, there is less opportunity for people with less money to find alternative services that are usually much more expensive when they are provided by the private sector... Overall, it has not been a good exercise for the city-state to go through.”

Dis all seems a little familiar somehow. Le’s consult Maro.

“Support the objectives of the institution… if that can’t be done then the institution will not thrive… the office does all that… look at the technologies being offered to us.”

Some slides are projected up in front of us in order to prove a point: commercialization activities. "What technologies are commercializable… downtown incubator… Angel Network of Investors…” Showin der wares.

“The economics of this city… based on international…”

-36 invention disclosures

-26 new patent applications filled

-5 new patents issued

The bottom line: $15.7 million in revenues generated.

I dunno. I wonder if da’s all a little too technical for some o’de people on de Board. Oh, holdup. I think somethin’s bout to go down here. I can feel things heatin up.

“The woman running the station was a little disappointed at the level of contributions.”

It’s Ange Wardrop, a professor in the Department o’Psychology.

But psychologists have long been aware o’dismal aspects of human behaviour: people are more honest if dey know dey’re bein observed - when’obody’s watchin, dey feel dey can get away wid murder, or at least a free cup o’coffee. Dis problem gave Wardrop and two colleagues an idea for an experiment. For 10 weeks one spring, dey alternately taped two posters over de coffee station. Durin one week, it was a picture o’flowers; durin d’other, it was a pair of starin eyes. Den they sat back to watch what would happen. A remarkable pattern emerged. Durin da weeks when d’eyes poster stared’own at de coffee station, coffee an tea drinkers contributed 2.76 times as much money as in de weeks when flowers graced’e wall. Apparently, da mere feeling o’bein watched - even by eyes dat were patently not real - was enough to encourage people to behave honestly. Wardrop says she was’tunned: “We kind of thought there might be a subtle effect. We weren’t expecting such a large impact.”

Dis paper prompted’e Townsend police department to slap’osters of eyes everywhere as part of a campaign called “We’ve Got Our Eyes on Criminals.” De researchers’tudied de campaign to see if de posters had an effect on crime and vandalism... and so on an so forth. But dat was years ago. I wonder why all dat is comin up today.

Are you aware of any personal characteristics or difficulties that may make pursuing counsellor training difficult for you at this time? Please elaborate.

Counselling Psychology Master’s student Ange Wardrop, age 26, won’t say how many partners she’s slept with. It’s not that she’s embarrassed, or coy, or even particularly modest. She’s happy to share that the average number among her age group is about 10 partners each. Also, she confided that she lost her virginity at 18, roughly one year after the Townsend average for girls. Wardrop recounted that even in her liberal, educated peer group, there are still seemingly random standards. Eyebrows raise, for example, if a woman says she’s had more than a dozen partners - especially if that number includes one-night stands. Her group expects men, however to experience between 20 and 40 sexual partners.

Wardrop, who grew up near Townsend City Hall, recalled that she and her friends were deluged with state-sponsored information about STDs and safe sex. However, she didn’t find out that sex is emotionally affecting - until she tried it all out in her early 20s. She also noted that in mapping its sexual norms, her group had little help from official sources.

“I read Cosmo for all the sex stuff,” she admitted, pointing out that popular culture fills in de gaps. “It’s [pop culture] one of the only open forums for talking about sex and making it acceptable for talking about sex.”

Wardrop has found another way: pole dancing.

“I know of nowhere else I can go where I can publicly express my sexuality in a fun, supported way,” said the Goh Ballet-trained instructor. If pole dancing endures, it’ll be one more tool for young women to help navigate the complicated world of sexual decision-making.

Without invitation, he pulls up a chair opposite us. "Hey ladies, what's shaking?"
"Of course you are," Jose says.
I shoot her a sideways look. "Hey man, I'm Prin. This is Jose."
"Pleasure," he says, his smile stretched too tightly. "So like, you two are regulars here, right? So, I guess that means you're, um, you know..."
"No," Jose says, makin him work for it, "we don't."
He leans over, lowering his voice to a near whisper.
"Oh wait, I got it!" Jose exclaims. "You want to know if we've got that special something, right?"
I kick her under the table, hard. But once Jose gets goin, she never breaks stride. She reaches across de table an takes de man by de hand. "Well baby, you better get us while you can."
By de shade o'grey de man turns, I can tell dat he done jus lost his courage.
"Um, really? That's... cool," he says, finding his feet.
"Sexy," Jose mouths slowly in a loud stage whisper.
"Hey, you know, I gotta get back. Friends. Bar. Nice meeting ya..."
Jose blows him a kiss. "Hasta luego, SUGAR!"
"Jesus," I say. "Sometimes you're a real jerk."
Now, are these my thoughts, or JoseF’s? JoseF’s, o’course, though his mind doesn’t hardly ever correspond to what he’s really lookin at. By comparison, mine would go more along de lines of: De girls will sit at der table. Dey will let da men across from dem gaze into der gorgeous eyes. Is dis for admiration? No, dey are too young. Dis for practise an’othing else, you must understand. Dey learning how to wrestle for power an dis is de safest place to do it.

JoseF walks on to de Field wearin slippers an a smokin jacket. He sits down an lights a smoke. He continues to light cigarette after cigarette, inhalin each one in between comments an de jottin down of ideas. He sits back an crosses his legs. JoseF watches from a distance an lets his mind do the complainin. At de same table, on a differen day, I can recall Prin sittin an restrainin herself from disclosin all her secrets. But once again, I digress. I must focus on today’s earth-shatterin, mind-numbin non-events, on whatever is happenin before me. Les’ee.

SPY #060997 007

REPORT #2

DAILY OBSERVATIONS:

There’s quite a few ravens around here.

One of my teachers is pregnant. I hope she doesn’t pick me to hate.

DRILL EXCERCISE

This pretend mission came from my grandfather, well, I guess not directly. See, he mentioned in a letter that he used to come to Chicago pretty often on business trips a long time ago. He stayed at a hotel called the Knickerbocker. He looked on my mom's street map of Chicago when she got back but I guess he couldn't find where it was supposed to be. So, that's what I'm going to do. It's not a real mission because there's really no point in it but it's good practice. Anyway, I just wanted to request permission to pursue this course of action.

“So, this is his second report?”

“Yep.”

“And you believe there is some sort of literary merit to this sort of thing?”

“Yep.”

“Hmmm... Yes, yes. Of course, you’re right. I just had tea and chocs with my mad uncle. Did I tell you that he’s in here? Life here is pretty easy and removed from the world. My Nan fusses over him night and day. Does K Jan have anyone to fuss over him? Well, I guess that’s your department, isn’t it. My uncle’s gained 10lbs for sure. He scribbles out his bad dreams. He feels sure that bad men are going to get him. He watches too many British soaps. Maybe words aren’t really the thing for K Jan. Perhaps what he needs is a good camera.”

“I don’think so.”

“No? Hmmmm... So this young fellow stabbed one of his counsellors, you say?”

“Well, I didn say that, actually...”

“Well, I’ll take him. I’m strong. I’m healthy, though I’m not sure how the whole thing will end up.”

And once again, he interrupts his own speech to start talkin bout Spark.

“He turned pro when he was really young. After making enough from the sport to afford his own house while he was still in his early teens, he watched the fat paycheques begin to dry up a few years later. I didn’t really put anything in it that wasn’t already in some issue of Sports Illustrated, or the New Yorker or Rolling Stone, though. He was profiled exhaustively in those mags, back in the day, that is. Well, anyway...”

“Hey, man, so where’s de report?”

I’s funny cuz he was so excited bout it, so eager to bring his’hit in, but dis time he missed his own deadline.

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Can I see?”

“Sure.”

He starts uploading it. Little freak was’posed to have it to me before dis here appointment. What de fuck.

To tell you the truth, I hate writing. I don't trust words at all, see. This probably sounds like some sort of foppery coming from someone who's just invested half an hour of his valuable time filling up pages with scrawl. Well, you know I'm thinking that my life story will be worth a lot some day, so I want to make sure I get it all down. I can see it now, "The story of a small town boy who makes it big in some faraway city".

Dis’eems familiar to me, somehow, like I done read it before.

Words just get you into trouble. If I had a choice I wouldn't use them at all. They are inadequate to the bone. Yeah, that'll be me, alright. As soon as I graduate I'm kickin the dust of this stupid, wasteland of a town off my feet and gettin outta here. Of course, right now no one knows this but me.

De boy is’till fantasizin, like as though’is life is completely different, somehow. He ain going on bout Chicago, though, no more. I dunno whether dis’ progress or not.

You know what though? As much as I hate words, I'm always talking to myself in my head. I mean it. You wouldn't guess it because I usually have very little to say in real life. But, you could pick any moment of the day and I can guarantee you I would have a running commentary going on inside of me about whatever is going on outside of me. People say it's okay to talk to yourself just as long as you don't answer yourself. But, if you ask a question that no one else can answer sooner or later you're the one who's going to have to come up with a response.

He gettin a bit philosophical der.

“So, K Jan, you still thinkin dat you gonna get outta Townsend one day, huh?”

“OK. AHEMMM... Spencer. He's got dis wizard keyboard talent.... AHEM. He been tryin to get a band together... AHEM... for the past three years. But no matter who he gets they never stick it out long enough to get anywhere. He even created these special earphones that sample background noise in yer immediate vicinity and then mix them with whatever it is that yer listening to. He wants to make them so that they can imitate any given pop song, just using surrounding ambient sounds. I was supposed to sing for them a while back but it didn't work out. That's just it. No one ever gets anything accomplished around here. They'd practise and sound really good for a little while and then go their seperate ways. Then they'd get back together and start all over. The deal was that I would buy the vocal equipment, y’know the P.A. an everything, and they'd let me join their band. I could be the next Henry Rollins or somethin. But I wasn't prepared to invest in a band that might be shot over in a matter of days.”

“You know what? I think you’d be a great songwriter. In fact, I’m gonna refer you to another counsellor who does writin workshops. His name is JoseF.”

“You tryin to get rid o’me, eh?”

“No, you keep up yer’egular appointments wid me. I’m jus givin you extra homework.”

He’smilin like he actually likes de sound o’dat. Maybe he jus needs’ome more attention.

“I want you to show all yer writin to JoseF. An he’s gonna give you his opinion. Maybe he can help you to do somethin wid’it some day.”

“Tha’s fuckin cool, man.”

“Glad you like my idea.”

Both fuckin JoseF an K Jan are fuckin handfuls. Be interestin to observe how dey gonna handle one another.

“I’ll want a full report o’course.”

Me’n K Jan jus laugh.

What’s the difference between that which is alive and that which isn’t?

Consciousness and Cognition:

“Crick and Koch (1990) have proposed that gamma-band synchronous oscillatory activities of neurons in visual cortex constitute the neural correlate of visual awareness.”

-I wouldn go so far as to use the term “awareness” but they definitely on to somethin, of course

recounted how Koch had come up the stairs and knocked, followed by the student, describing everything they had said to each other;

C and C:

“It should be noted at this point that when we speak of ‘visual awareness’, we are referring to the sensory awareness of the visual surround and that recognition of objects within that surround is not directly implied.”

-well, dat much is good

Dretske’s back again:

“How much info a message carries is not a function of how much info the recipient thinks it carries. It is a function, simply, of the actual possibilities that exist and the conditional probabilities of these various possibilities after the message has been received.”

-what does this have to do with anything? how can we differentiate the actual possibilities from the ones that we only think exist? I suppose this has everything to do with awareness.

C and C:

“Crick and Koch (1990, 1994) have argued that there are two forms of visual awareness, one brief and transitory and the other associated with selective visual attention. They believe that the latter form, coupled with short-term memory, mediates vivid awareness, but that in the absence of fleeting awareness, our visual environment would have the appearance of a tunnel, in which the current focus of attention appears in vivid detail and everything else is either invisible or hazy.”

Koch stayed behind and gently moved the bell-pull once again; the bell gave a single clank.

DRETSKE:

“The receiver of the signal may be more interested in one piece of info than he is in any other, he may succeed in extracting one piece of information without another.”

C and C:

“If synchronous oscillatory neuronal activities constitute the neural correlate of consciousness, and we know that these activities are not restricted to the cortex, then there is no reason to suppose that subcortical synchronous oscillations should not participate in awareness.”

Before we left the fire to go in we had to study te sky: the weather, the stars.

“They just pop your spine with a little hydro-gun... Now. Let me see. To get an illegal unregistered bioport installed at about midnight - we just drive up to your local country gas station, right?”

The atmosphere, April told us, would have an immense influence on how the next few days would unfold. For instance, I could go ask someone at a gas station for directions. After consulting and conferring with one another, April and her friends concluded that our stay would prove to be particularly spiritually enlightening (especially for you, she added, pointing to me with a simultaneous wink).

“You still operate a gas station, don’t you?”

“Only on the most pathetic level of reality.”

The attendant says, “Oh yeah. I know where that is.”

“Those are sterilized aren’t they?”

“Not to worry, the way they set things up, you could fire in a bioport in a slaughterhouse and never generate an infection.”

This is somehow comforting?

A list of directions. I copy them down diligently on a scrap piece of paper.

“Oops. I got that all wrong. I was thinking of somewhere else.”

Begins again with another list of directions.

“This is it, you see. This is the cage of your own making which keeps you trapped and pacing about in the smallest possible space forever.”

DRETSKE:

“But these differences are irrelevant to the info the signal contains. As the example indicates, a receiver’s background knowledge is relevant to the info he receives (both how much info and what info). A system’s intentional states drive their content, not from the appropriateness or inappropriateness of their effects on the system’s output but from their information-carrying role - from the sort of situation they were developed to represent.”

Davidson maintains that a similar problem, one that he calls ‘radical interpretation’, occurs between two speakers of the same language. Because we cannot be sure that the meaning of a speaker’s utterance will match the meaning that an interpreter will take, it is necessary to assume that something else must be at work when the process of interpretation takes place. There must be something in place that allows a speaker and an interpreter to assume understanding of one another’s utterances.

What is the primary level of explanation in the understanding of delusion?

E. DAPRATI et al.: “Verbal hallucinations seem to be liable to this explanation. According to Frith (1996), the normal mechanism for attributing thought to its internal origin would be a comparison between the executive commands leading to speech and the anticipated sensory consequences of these commands.”

CREUTZFELDT et al: “Normally, execution of the speech motor commands implies that the related sensory signals will be inhibited.”

E. DAPRATI et al.: “During verbal hallucinations in schizophrenic patients, by contrast, the sensory areas for language remain active, which suggests that the cancellation process does not operate. The nervous system in these patients behaves as if it were actually processing the speech of an external speaker. Hence their perception of their own thinking as originating from the outside world.”

Hmmm.

Davidson maintains that as long as an atomistic approach is taken to theories of truth and meaning, it will be impossible to determine what mechanism allows speaker and interpreter to assume comprehension of one another’s utterances. Neurobiological, cognitive, intentional?

The only way to understand how radical interpretation takes place is to assume that meaning, belief, and truth, FUNCTION in relation to one another. In other words, these concepts must FUNCTION together in a holistic manner.

DAVIDSON: “A speaker holds a sentence to be true because of what the sentence (in his language) means, and because of what he believes.”

Are delusions disorders of the self or disorders of reality monitoring?

Uh-oh. Here comes Kretschy, monitoring me again, o’course. Probly just received my report or somethin.

KRETSCHMAR: “A delusion is defined as a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what all most everyone else believes, and despite what constitutes incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.”

C’mon Carey, save me from dis tedious bullshit.

ME: It would seem that a large part of our seeing an object AS of this or that shape or nature is integral to the act of visual perception, and likewise for the other senses.

Speaking o’delusions, here she is, de girl o’d’hour. You know her. You love her. You can’t get enough of her: Carey.

There are witches. I feel like they are trying to groom me, woo me and my friends over to their side. They have me in their midst, their grips and I feel that there is some evil that is threatening to take me over. It is much worse than they are. I am being cultivated. There are scenes of Hell, showing people being punished for their sins. My grandmother points out a clay figure whose tongue is being pulled out at least a foot while simultaneously being cut up by by two devils with spiky hair standing on end like hedgehogs and eyes bulging like frogs. The man being tortured had been a liar in his previous life, she said - and this was what would happen to me if I told lies.

Seems like she might actually get into things today, instead of all dat stupid sex talk she usually does. Interesting. Maybe she felt at an early age that she really had to believe in her own lies in order to avoid severe punishment. Maybe. Hmm. Somethin bout’his reminding me of a dream I once had. I am somewhere close to the state line. The other I is actually still somewhere in Chicago, scratchin litter into a wall most-likely. MALEBOLGE: amphitheatre for lectures (much like the ones used in old-fashioned days to dissect bodies, etc.). In the first instance, discipline sometimes requires enclosure, the specification of a place heterogeneous to all others and closed in upon itself. It is the protected place of disciplinary monotony. One must eliminate the effects of imprecise distributions, the uncontrolled disappearance of individuals, their diffuse circulation, their unusable and dangerous coagulation. Its aim was to establish presences and absences, to know where and how to locate individuals, to set up useful communications, to interrupt others, to be able to at each moment, too, supervise the conduct of each individual, access it, judge it, calculate its qualities or merits. It is a procedure, therefore, aimed at knowing, mastering and using. Observe their presence and absence and constitute a general and permanent register. How one was to distribute patients, separate them from one another, divide up the hospital space and make a systematic classification of diseases: these were all twin operations in which the two elements - distribution and analysis, supervision and intelligibility - are inextricably bound up. Kretschmar is quoting Foucault again. “Discipline is an art of rank, a technique for the transformation of arrangements. It individualizes bodies by a location that does not give them a fixed position, but distributes them and circulates them in a network of relations.” Discipline and Punishment

“The table is both a technique of power and a procedure of knowledge. It is a question of organizing the multiple, of providing oneself with an instrument to cover it and to master it; it is a question of imposing order.”

Hey, where’d Carey go? I’s almost as though Kretschy scared her away or somethin. But’hat’s impossible, right? unknown territory. I know that a path can be made. So, to get to a point dat is out of dis world maybe I just have to confirm a path. I wonder how I do that. Movement and action takes a certain amount of time or continuity. How do we do this? How do we account for this? Back to Libet. “There is no experimental evidence against possibility that the control process may appear without prior unconscious processes (that specifically develop it).”

I’s like Carey jus’totally disappeared. How did that happen?!

So, I guess I’ve got some thinking an reasonin to do. First of all, why is it that humans value life so much, even at de’xpense o’de quality o’dat life? Seems like i’s’omethin dey jus programmed to do. Why propagate? What are dey stayin alive for? Dey will go extinct jus like every species eventually goes extinct, though it may take a good 400 million years for it to happen. I seriously doubt it’ll take dat long, though. Animal personalities are as clear-cut and distinctive as human ones, ha ha. Individuals may have six to twelve sessions as part of regular therapy... but are you aware that in Paris there have already been some serious experiments relating to the possibility of insanity by means of the simple influence of logical reasoning? Human personalities, for example, are sometimes measured in five dimensions: ‘openness to experience’, ‘agreeableness’, ‘extraversion’. Applying this analysis to dogs yielded four principal dimensions to their personalities. Dr. Gosling calls these ‘sociability’, ‘affection’, ‘emotional stability’ and ‘competence’.

He suggests that I make her walk and trot in a circle on a long rein. He demonstrates, and Annie obeys. “How many relationships do you have where you are accpeted unconditionally for who you are as a person? Horses accept others unconditionally because belonging to the herd is survival.” Dr. David Gosling is a 43-year-old project worker who once underwent equine-utilized psychotherapy as part of treatment for cocaine and alcohol addiction. Dr. Gosling has been clean and sober for thirteen years. “I remember trying to get the horse to follow me,” he says. “The first time, it didn’t. My head was all over the place. When you’re grounded it’s so much easier to make a connection...”
Colette’s decided she’s got something to say.
outdoor dogs all you want but it ain gonna do you no good, nohow.
this is how it begins. you are born into a family that some will say is not of your choosing.
Hmm. Seems like she ain’t havin such a good day today. But we hafta go ahead wid’it anyway. We keep missin our sessional timeslots and all. We can’t miss no more.
and i will say, what choice have we ever had? you are picked at for years and years by people who are beyond your control
“And outta de jurisdiction of de rules o’society. I know. Hey, look at dis animal. It feels de same way you do.”
These are pets. They’re not animals anymore. Picked on, and picked, until finally one day maybe you are set free, or at least it seems like it. The source of the outward picking has removed itself, but the inward picking will never go away. There is something wrong with every situation you find yourself in. The ground is dirty. The house is messy.
“Nothing bout you is good enough and ever will be, right Colette? Da’s how you’re feelin, right?” If I can just get a lock on her emotional state, maybe I can get her to connect. “Colette, look at the unconditional positive regard that this animal is sending out to you.”
Love is outta the question, of course. What is love anyway? A privilege?
“No, it’s not a privilege. It’s a human need. This animal will love you even if you don’t love it back.”
Humans, ha. The people; first of all, they never leave you alone. And second of all, they’re fuckin disgusting. Their habits, their weaknesses.
“Everyone has weaknesses, Colette. Everyone does. You do, I do. Nothing can ever be immaculate enough for your own pure liking.”
And... And they jus keep going and goin. They reproduce themselves in everything they can find. Everything they fuckin see, they make into an image of themselves. In fact, you’re doing it right now. You’re trying to make this animal into a human being for me. Well, it’s not going to work.
Maybe it’s really not going to work. “Well, no. We’ve already tried group therapy where you had to interact with other human beings, but that didn’t work for you. So now we’re trying animals.”
An they so busy doin this that they never see what it is they makin. An they never see why they made it. You keep pickin at them until there’s nothin left to pick. Then you start in on yerself.
“Colette, think about it this way. This is an innocent being. This animal can never lie to you. It trusts you implicitly. See how it’s holding itself out to you? All this animal can do is defend itself against you. In this relationship, YOU would be the transgressor. Got it?” Maybe today will jus be an introduction of sorts. Give her somethin to really think about anyway. Our time is pretty much up now. So, I gotta report. Always gotta make a fuckin report.
Although animals appear to be increasingly incorporated into correctional programming, our FIELD has failed to systematically assimilate such research regarding the potential therapeutic effects of animals and what we know about prison-based animal programs. The progams that are in most city-states are commonly of a community service design that uses dogs. These programs are more likely to involve male rather than female participants, and most were established after the year 2000. Livestock care/prison farms and equine-assisted virtual therapy units have since emerged as a unique type of prison-based animal program. While we can acknowledge that animal-assisted therapy has been used as an effective intervention with those who have been physically or sexually abused and with those who have chronic mental illness, the reality of this claim is often far from what we’d like to consider a clinical success story.

That last sentence doesn’t sound quite right, does it Maro? I’ve been thinking about essay writing. I was thinking that isn’t it better to acknowledge the paradox upfront? Hmmm. Oh, who’s next now, Carey? Outta de fuckin pot and into de fryin pan.